Oral Answers to Questions
Lilian Greenwood Excerpts(1 year ago)
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The Prime Minister
We are making significant improvements to our cross-border rail services across the Union. Thanks to our decision on HS2, we can now provide an unprecedented £1 billion of investment to fund the electrification of the north Wales main line, which will ensure reliable, punctual journeys between north Wales and multiple cities across the north-west of England. We are also continuing to develop the Pant-Llanymynech bypass scheme in our next round of the road investment plans, and a section of the A5 in England will be considered by National Highways as part of the midlands and Gloucestershire to Wales route strategy.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
Oral Answers to Questions
Lilian Greenwood Excerpts(1 year, 4 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I thank my hon. Friend for his work on that report: I know that he is rightly passionate about this area. The Government support the development of geothermal projects in the UK, provided that it can be done at an acceptable cost to consumers and in an environmentally friendly manner, and I will ensure that he gets a meeting with the relevant Minister to discuss his report and ideas further.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
Nottingham is devastated by the senseless attacks that took place on our streets yesterday. The thoughts and prayers of the whole city are with the family and friends of those who were killed, and with those who were injured. It is absolutely heartbreaking to see the pictures of Barnaby and Grace, the University of Nottingham students whose young lives, so full of potential, have been tragically cut short. As ever, we thank the emergency services, who acted quickly and courageously to save lives. Will the Prime Minister ensure that his Government provide the police, the universities and others in our city with everything they need to support our constituents following these horrendous events?
The Prime Minister
Like the rest of the country, I have been moved by the heartbreaking tributes from their loved ones. This is an extraordinarily difficult time and every parent’s worst nightmare. The hearts of the whole country are with the families and all those who have lost their lives. The hon. Lady will, I am sure, understand that I cannot comment further at this stage, given that there is an ongoing situation, but the Home Secretary will be making a statement after Prime Minister’s questions.
Transport in Nottinghamshire
Lilian Greenwood Excerpts(2 years ago)
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Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
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Tom Randall (Gedling) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered Transport in Nottinghamshire.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir George. I congratulate the Minister on her inaugural Westminster Hall debate. I thank colleagues from across our great county for attending this debate, and I look forward to hearing their contributions. I know that there are other county colleagues who would be here had their ministerial obligations allowed them.
If I may, Sir George, I want to take you on a journey to the heart of England, to a place where the English civil war began and ended. It gave the world Boots the chemist, D. H. Lawrence, Alan Sillitoe, Nicholas Hawksmoor, Sir Paul Smith, Torvill and Dean, Ken Clarke and Ed Balls. The strapline of Nottingham City Council used to be “Our style is legendary”. I submit that, across the arts and sciences, from medicine to sport, from politics to business and literature, Nottingham and Nottinghamshire compete on not only a national but an international stage.
In a global world, connectivity is key. It is therefore appropriate to talk about transport in Nottingham and Nottinghamshire. I will talk about recent successes and what more we need to do. Our great county is not one of forests and bows and arrows; its legendary style is taking us into the future. Nottinghamshire is to host the world’s first fusion energy power plant at a site near Retford, bringing billions of pounds and thousands of jobs to the region. The East Midlands freeport, including the Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station site in Rushcliffe, is the UK’s only inland freeport and promises to position the region as a green tech trailblazer, driving significant new job growth in the region as well as local and international trade.
But we need the funding to match those ambitions. The East Midlands Chamber and east midlands councils analysed the Treasury’s latest public expenditure statistical analysis for 2021. They found that there was a particular deficit in transport infrastructure spending, at just 64.7% of the UK average for 2020-21—the joint lowest of any UK region or nation. If the east midlands were funded at a level equivalent to the national average, it would have an extra £1.26 billion a year to spend on transport.
Over the past 10 years, there has been a growing gap in transport spend between the east midlands and the west midlands, where spend has been rising. In 2016-17, the £217 per head spent on transport in the east midlands was two thirds of the £322 received by the west midlands, and by 2019-20 that proportion had declined to 61%.
Before speaking about how we might remedy that, I want to praise the good news. I welcomed the publication of the integrated rail plan in 2021, which offered a £96 billion package. The Sun newspaper described the east midlands as the big winners of the plan, and I am particularly keen to see High Speed 2 come to Nottinghamshire to reduce not only travel times to London but the journey time from Nottingham to Birmingham from 74 minutes to 26 minutes. John Lewis might have closed its store in central Birmingham, but residents of Edgbaston and Selly Oak will have no trouble coming to Nottingham to shop.
I also welcome the integrated rail plan’s inclusion of the full electrification of the midland main line. It has been a long time coming. I remember as an 18-year-old attending my first Conservative parliamentary selection meeting for the 2001 general election and hearing the campaign hopefuls talking about it then. We seem finally to be making progress on that. I ask the Minister to confirm that the Government remain committed to delivering the integrated rail plan in full, including the plans for the east midlands generally and Nottinghamshire in particular, and that recent announcements about Northern Powerhouse Rail will not affect the county.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for securing this debate on such an important topic. Does he share my concern that we have been promised investment in east midlands transport many times, only to be disappointed? Schemes such as the electrification of the midland main line have been promised and then withdrawn. Does he share my concern that we are having to wait longer and longer for the improved transport services that our region needs? Does he share my hope that the Minister will commit to some timescales for the completion of the electrification and the HS2 link to the east midlands?
Tom Randall
The hon. Lady comes to this debate with more experience than me of being a Nottinghamshire MP, having been in this House for some time. Also, as a former Chair of the Transport Committee, she speaks with some experience of this issue in particular. However, I come here optimistic and hopeful that we will see the progress that has perhaps eluded us for too long.
Our railways are not just about inter-city travel; getting into and out of cities from suburbs, towns and villages is equally important. The integrated rail plan offered, business case permitting, investment in the Robin Hood and Maid Marian lines. Can the Minister say whether these schemes are included in the Department’s acceleration unit’s portfolio of projects?
In my constituency of Gedling, we have three railway stations—Burton Joyce, Carlton and Netherfield—that are not being used to their full potential. They are pleasant stations, but local residents complain that if they have a train to take them to work in the morning, they will not necessarily have one to take them home. Too many trains pass through Gedling stations without stopping and rail services do not run late enough for the train to be an option for those travelling to the city of Nottingham for leisure.
This can and must be remedied. Improvements on the lines between Nottingham, Lincoln and Grantham can help to make rail journeys competitive with car journeys. I know that the Minister will receive a business case from Midlands Connect in the new year on how to make improvements on this line. Can she make a quick determination on that proposal? If she would like to visit any of those stations to help her to understand the problem, she is more than welcome to visit.
Netherfield station stands on the Grantham line, which runs south from Nottingham, which brings me to another serious topic: crossing the river. In “Henry IV, Part One”, Hotspur speaks of
“the smug and silver Trent”.
I would not describe the Trent as “silver” these days, but perhaps the river had reason to fill “smug” in February 2020, when it succeeded in bringing gridlock to Nottingham. There are three bridges across the River Trent in Greater Nottingham. The latest was opened to traffic in the early 1980s, having originally been built as a railway bridge in the 1870s. Over time, the growing city has had to rely on these existing connections, which lie in the centre of the western city.
In February 2020, it was discovered that water damage had corroded steelwork under the Clifton bridge, which is the only dual carriageway crossing in Greater Nottingham. That caused the temporary closure of the east bridge, which carries all eastbound traffic and one lane of westbound traffic, while the bridge was repaired. The closure of the Clifton bridge brought large parts of the city to a standstill at rush hour, including traffic on the A612 in Gedling, which is on the other side of Greater Nottingham. Natalie Fahy, editor of The Nottingham Post, wrote at the time:
“The closure of Clifton Bridge means traffic has been chaotic, with journeys of just a few miles taking people hours to complete. The QMC has been hard to reach, being stuck right at the epicentre of the crisis. Throw into the mix a high-stakes Forest game at home and you’ve got a big Nottingham problem.”
She concluded:
“The problem we’ve got is that there is no slack in our traffic system. We are incredibly vulnerable.”
Ms Fahy’s analysis is, I submit, entirely right. One remedy would be to construct a fourth crossing for road traffic across the River Trent in Greater Nottingham. A fourth Trent crossing to the east of the city would relieve the pressure on the existing system. If it was constructed in, for example, Colwick, that would complement the recently built Gedling access road, while also providing better services and better access to the A46 for residents in the eastern side of Nottingham.
Midlands Connect has described the A46, which runs from Somerset to Lincolnshire, as one of the country’s most important trade routes, performing an important local, regional and national function. The Government have previously signalled their commitment to the importance of the A46 in Nottinghamshire by widening the single carriageway section between Newark and Widmerpool, and there are plans for an A46 Newark bypass. A fourth Trent crossing would connect Gedling to the A46 corridor. I spoke earlier about the East Midlands freeport and the thousands of green jobs that it is destined to create. I want my constituents to be able to access those jobs, which a fourth Trent crossing would help them to do.
A full bridge would be costly, and I appreciate that infrastructure projects take time and need to progress step by step. However, I would be grateful if the Minister signalled her support for a strategic outline business case for such a project, which even in these financially straitened times would come in at a much more manageable £150,000.
I must resist the temptation to be too Gedling-focused in any debate about Nottinghamshire. As my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Darren Henry) cannot contribute to today’s debate, let me also mention Nottinghamshire County Council’s £40 million levelling-up bid to finance the planned Toton link road. The new link road would consist of a one-mile, single carriageway track between the A52 east of Bardills island and Stapleford lane, taking the form of a high-quality, landscaped boulevard with significant tree planting and walking and cycling routes. I know from the recently opened Gedling access road, which cost a similar amount, how transformative such a scheme can be. The Minister will be instinctively coy about commenting on levelling-up funding, but I gently ask whether the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities is aware of the merits of these proposals.
My hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe would have also mentioned bus services and the vital lifeline they provide for elderly and vulnerable constituents, citing particular concern about the withdrawal of the L10 and L11 services in Bramcote, and now the withdrawal of the number 21. Other Members will likely also mention bus services, but locally in Gedling, I welcome the Government’s support for the bus service improvement plan, which will support a number of routes, including the 39, 53 and Lime Line services from Arnold to the city of Nottingham.
So far, I have focused on the south of the county. As someone who was born in Nottingham and lives in Arnold, I hope that is forgivable—I have tried to speak about what I know. I have also covered projects that might be considered high level. However, in any discussion about transport in Nottinghamshire, I ought to mention the concern of the average road user: potholes. It is no secret that Nottinghamshire’s roads need a bit of tender loving care, and the issue has been the subject of numerous local newspaper reports.
I will highlight two recent developments. The county council decided to replace—where possible—the much-hated, temporary “tarmac out of a bag” pothole repairs, which seemed to disintegrate as soon as workmen had tended to them, with a new patch repair way of cutting and filling, which works much better, lasts longer and is much neater. I also applaud the Conservative-run Nottinghamshire County Council’s decision to spend an extra £15 million on road repairs. Residents in and around Westdale lane in Carlton, to give one example of many, will much appreciate that forthcoming transformative investment.
We will hear shortly from the leader of Nottinghamshire County Council, my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley), and others who will speak knowledgeably about the entire county, particularly the north. In general, I am positive about the future possibilities for transport in Nottinghamshire, and the forthcoming Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire devolution deal, which will see transport decisions made more locally. Nottingham and Nottinghamshire’s leaders have worked in partnership with the Government to deliver a series of announcements for our region. I look forward to hearing colleagues’ contributions on how we can make sure that not only our style, but our transport, is made legendary.
Ruth Edwards (Rushcliffe) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Tom Randall) on securing this timely debate and welcome my hon. Friend the Minister. I feel sure that our transport woes are about to be magicked into thin air as she takes hold of her brief. I thank her for being here today.
The 20th century will be remembered for many things: the telephone, the television, the internet, two world wars, one World cup, Beatlemania, Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher and the second Elizabethan age. But it will also be remembered as the century where our public transport policy—pardon the pun—lost its way. Convinced as we were that the car was king, public transport infrastructure was neglected or destroyed. From Beeching to Blair, railways bore the brunt. Buses were brushed aside, and cycling and walking were relegated to the second division of transport choices.
It is only since the Conservative Government came into office in 2010 that this 20th-century, feet-of-clay thinking has been replaced with 21st-century, forward-looking optimism. That optimism reimagines our transport system around car-free journeys and reinvests in our public transport system. It is behind the Government’s drive to make record investment in transport to and from Nottinghamshire.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling mentioned, last autumn the integrated rail plan confirmed the delivery of HS2 right into the heart of Rushcliffe, to East Midlands Parkway station. That is also the heart of the new East Midlands freeport. We will get up and down our country faster. Train times from Nottingham to London will be cut by two thirds. We will get across our country faster. Train times from Nottingham to Birmingham will also be slashed by two thirds. It is a package worth more than £10 billion for the east midlands.
The arrival of HS2 will help to level up a region that has historically suffered from one of the lowest transport spending rates per head anywhere in country, and that is not all. We are also powering ahead with the electrification of the midland main line. As a result of that investment, travel to and from Nottinghamshire will be much faster than before. The Government’s vision for building big infrastructure is impressive, but smaller and—crucially, in the current climate—much cheaper investment is also needed to improve people’s daily journeys.
Lilian Greenwood
I am quite surprised to hear the hon. Member talking as if there were no investment in transport in Nottinghamshire under the last Labour Government, because of course Nottingham City Council was able to create its tram lines in that period, which have obviously been expanded in recent years. Does she share my concern, however, that I will have retired, and perhaps she will have too, before future improvements such as the electrification of the midland main line and HS2 actually appear in our constituencies?
Ruth Edwards
Not at all. I looked up the last Labour Government’s delivery of miles of track, and it was something absolutely pathetic—something like 63 miles—so I have every faith that the delivery of the midland main line electrification and HS2 will come a lot faster than they would if Labour were in charge.
For my constituents, getting around Rushcliffe and into Nottingham, Loughborough and Melton is also key, and there are two issues I want to touch on in this debate. One is the train service from Radcliffe-on-Trent to Nottingham; the second is the issue of rural buses, which my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling highlighted.
In Radcliffe-on-Trent, we need a more reliable, frequent train service on the Poacher line, with trains every hour between 6.30 am and 10 pm, and every half an hour at peak times. Constituents have told me that the early finish to train services and the long gaps between trains mean they are not a realistic option for commuting, or for going into Nottingham in the evenings. There is also only step-free access on one side of the station for customers going into Nottingham. How those who cannot use steps are supposed to cross the railway tracks once they get back to Radcliffe is not entirely clear. We applied to the restoring your railway fund, but were refused on the grounds that our railway was already up and running. That is fair, but it seems a shame not to invest what must be a fraction of the cost of restoring a derelict track in order to enable more people to use an existing one.
I have been working with the Department for Transport and with East Midlands Railway, and we have made some good progress. Earlier morning services have been introduced, as has an additional peak service and evening service, and we have more services on Saturday and Sunday. However, we are still short of the regular service we need. DFT is working on a business case to extend the service, and East Midlands Railway has told us how popular the new services have been. I have been fortunate to have great support from previous rail Ministers, especially my right hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris). I would be grateful if the Minister confirmed that the new ministerial team at the Department will continue to support the project to get more trains running to and from Nottingham and Radcliffe-on-Trent, serving this fast-growing community in my constituency.
Many of my constituents also rely on rural bus services to go to work, doctors’ appointments and the shops, and to visit friends and family. Last month, out of the blue, Trentbarton announced that it would be cutting the Skylink bus service between Nottingham and Loughborough. That service links many of my constituents in villages such as Sutton Bonington and Normanton-on-Soar to vital services in those centres. I would like to share with Members a couple of stories from constituents who rely on that service. Carol Payne says:
“I live on my own in a housing association property in the village and don’t drive. I also have a son with SEN who has recently started uni at Brackenhurst NTU, we chose this so that if he needed support we could meet in Nottingham. This is now not the case as the weekend service is cancelled and there is the worry the service could be cancelled altogether…I myself work in Loughborough”,
at the college,
“and rely on the bus to get to work and back. Without this service I cannot work which ultimately means I could lose my job and possibly my home if I can’t pay my bills. I cannot afford to move to Loughborough, as I would need to rent privately…I travel on this service twice a day…people use this particular service for work but it is also used by several young people who are using it to access Loughborough college and some schools.”
Jodie Warrington writes:
“I for one, and I know many other residents, use the bus to get to QMC for hospital appointments on a regular basis. I also use the bus to get into Loughborough to do the shopping. With two villages only having one corner shop and two very small community shops, how are we meant to shop cheaply with the cost of living? As far as residents are aware, no consultation has been sent regarding losing this bus service. I can’t afford taxis everywhere. How do we get to doctor’s appointments, hospital appointments, food shopping, top up gas and electric? I can’t walk the mile there and back to Pasture Lane stores in Sutton Bonington from Normanton with my disabilities. I have no family that I can really rely on.”
I am extremely grateful to Nottinghamshire County Council and the leader of said council, my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley), who is sitting next to me, for stepping in to provide the funding for this service until April, while a review of bus services across the county is undertaken. I know that work patterns have changed for many people since the pandemic. Many routes that used to be commercially viable and could cross-subsidise those that were not, no longer make enough money.
We need to look at new ways to provide these services, such as the on-demand bus model being trialled in Nottinghamshire. We also need to address the issue of shortage of labour, because Trentbarton is struggling to get enough drivers to maintain its timetable. Buses have become irregular to the point where the timetable is part fact and part fiction. It is making daily tasks and journeys very difficult for my constituents. Just this morning, constituents from Cotgrave told me that last night lots of people were unable to get home as all the buses were suddenly cancelled, due to a lack of drivers.
Trentbarton is not the only bus company facing this problem. Having spoken to them, I understand that the main issues in recruiting drivers are people no longer wanting to work unsociable hours after the break over the pandemic, and the higher wages being offered to HGV drivers. Businesses up and down Rushcliffe in all sorts of sectors—transport, farming, hospitality and social care—all tell me of their difficulty in recruiting and retaining staff.
The tight labour market is one of the biggest supply-side issues facing businesses and inhibiting growth at the moment. I urge the Minister to take that feedback to colleagues, and also ensure that we have strong plans to encourage more people into careers across our transport sector. I also hope the Minister will be able to commit to a meeting with Nottinghamshire colleagues and Nottinghamshire County Council to discuss how we can continue to fund and deliver a strong rural bus network, right across the county.
We are getting funding but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield will set out in more detail in his speech, it comes with caveats, such as that the funding must be spent on bus lanes. On many of Rushcliffe’s rural roads there is no space for bus lanes—we would rather have the buses in the first place, please. Reliable buses and regular trains, accessible stations and timetables that mean that people who took the train to work can also get home: I accept those are not the sexy announcements that make the front page, but they are the vital bread-and-butter services that enable our constituents to use public transport to get to work, to take their family on an outing, to do their weekly shop, or to visit their doctor, dentist, hairdresser or dog groomer. Get the picture: it is important.
If we want to promote the use of public transport, it needs to be regular, reliable and convenient. Otherwise, why would people use it? The Government are trying to encourage more car-free journeys, so it is vital that investment is made in the local transport that people use every day, if we want to encourage people to use that instead of the car. I met a gentleman at a parish meeting in Keyworth last week, who told me that he used to get the bus to work in Nottingham. The bus had become so irregular and unreliable that it was taking him longer than it took his partner to drive from Keyworth to Coventry. He no longer takes the bus.
Strong public transport networks become even more vital when we consider the record number of new homes being built. In Rushcliffe we have seen far more new homes and developments than the national constituency average. They have been built without the infrastructure to match. Reform of the planning system is an issue for another debate; I can hear the Minister breathing a huge sigh of relief at that. The wider issue that is relevant today is that resilient public transport networks and infrastructure are even more vital in areas with significant numbers of new houses being built—areas such as Rushcliffe.
That brings me to my fourth point, which is, happily, about the fourth bridge—the one over the Trent, that is, as showcased earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling. My hon. Friend described the chaos that rained down on Nottinghamshire the weekend when Clifton bridge was shut for emergency repairs. I think I remember reading at the time that, on that weekend, Nottingham was the most congested city in not only the UK and Europe, but the world.
In conclusion, at the moment our infrastructure for crossing the Trent is stretched to capacity. I really hope that the Minister will commit to delivering the initial assessment of proposals so that we can consider our options, including costs and timescales. We have made fantastic leaps forward with big infrastructure investments, but we now need to focus on the issues that affect people getting around our constituencies every single day. Buses and trains need to be reliable and frequent; if they are, I am sure people will use them more and more.
Ben Bradley (Mansfield) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir George. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Tom Randall) on securing this important debate. I echo his words about the fourth Trent crossing; he is a keen campaigner on this issue and has been lobbying hard for several years to bring forward an idea that he has discussed with me in my role as leader of the council. The project is well beyond our local budget, but I would welcome the opportunity to work with the Government and bring forward a business case in the way my hon. Friend has described. I also welcome my hon. Friend the Minister, who, even during our short seconds of conversation before this debate, has already made me decide that she is a breath of fresh air. I hope that will continue.
As colleagues have mentioned, I am the leader of the local transport authority, so I am pleased to have the opportunity to bang on at length about these issues—I think I have about an hour left to go through them all. I want to start with the very local and raise a couple of Mansfield-specific issues with the Minister. The first is the Robin Hood line. My right hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Mark Spencer) and I have been banging on about this now, in our various capacities, for about 12 years. We have made a lot of progress: the project has inched forward significantly, but it has only inched. We have had a commitment for a long time, but progress is slow. It was finally announced in the integrated rail plan, most recently, as part of the connections around Nottinghamshire in Toton, which are hugely important.
There is now further potential to link the existing Robin Hood line—it is still in place; it just needs upgrading—to projects such as STEP Fusion in the north of the locality. There is the opportunity to bring in billions in investment, jobs and growth and link all that together. We can improve on the issue and take local control over through our devolution deal, but should take any opportunity to accelerate the process or bring forward what is a smaller and perhaps less widely strategically vital project for the locality and the region, but hugely important to local communities, who just want to access work and leisure opportunities that they cannot at the minute without a car. Many cannot afford a car in those areas. The issue is hugely important to us and I welcome any opportunity to accelerate the project.
The second issue is the Sainsbury’s junction, as it is known locally, on the A60 in Mansfield. Frustratingly, at one point I had actually secured the funding the fix it. We worked hard prior to the pandemic to come up with a workable plan that we thought would improve the situation resulting from the district council’s helpful decision to put about 20 different businesses, including two supermarkets, into a retail site with one entrance and exit on to a busy trunk road. People can queue for up to an hour at Christmas to get out of it.
We came up with a plan and submitted it to the Government’s pinch point fund and were promptly told that we would get the money. That was the day before the pandemic hit, and the money was promptly—and quite understandably—reprioritised to other things. But the plan is there and the money was there. If we could get the money, we would crack on and do it. The issue is hugely important to my constituents. Does the Minister know whether such pinch point-type funding opportunities are likely to be revisited?
My final point, a positive one, is about the significant upgrades to the A614—the spine road up through the north of Nottinghamshire that allows many of my constituents to get to work—that are starting this year. We are keen to deliver those and accelerate the outcomes and the growth they will unlock around those communities. People will not be surprised to hear that inflationary pressures will have an impact. Are the Government minded to give support to deal with inflationary pressures around such projects? The good news is that work will commence later this year.
My colleagues, my hon. Friends the Members for Rushcliffe (Ruth Edwards) and for Gedling, have touched on the issues I want to raise, beyond Mansfield and into the county. The first is highways maintenance. A good quality highway network is absolutely key for residents in Nottinghamshire. It is always the number one thing that comes up in county council elections and in surveys; I imagine it will be the number one issue that people raise in our budget survey later this year. Although our care services are vital, they touch only a very small proportion of our residents, whereas everybody uses the roads.
We undertook a massive review about 12 months ago. It has now finished and has resulted in 50 different actions that we will take forward, including a longer-term programme of works and improving the way we repair local roads, including residential roads, with a move to a “right first time” approach where we make the more expensive, long-term repair that delivers the quality residents expect, instead of temporary repairs, wherever we can. We are also working hard to communicate better with residents to make sure they understand what is happening on their street and why and how long it will take, in advance of it happening, which has perhaps been lacking up to now. I am pleased we have been able to do that.
We have invested an additional £12 million over the next four years, on top of the £18.5 million annual DFT funding, to start to tackle the historic backlog of repairs. In truth, there is some £150 million-worth of repairs. If the Minister can find that down the back of the sofa, I can get it all sorted. It is a challenge. Dare I say that this is what happens when 32 years out of the last 40 have been Labour-led in the county? I knew Opposition Members would enjoy that remark.
The changes we have introduced are starting to make a real difference to residents on the ground. We have reduced the number of temporary repairs, which everybody hates to see, by nearly 60%, while doubling the number of square metres of high-quality repairs that we have been able to do over the past 12 months. Those outcomes are great, but we have thousands of miles of road to cover, so that is a really long-term project. We are making good progress. I welcome the announcement that the pothole element of the DFT funds will continue into next year. I hope we will get a good share to be able to tackle the backlog and continue to deliver this work.
On wider transport, and particularly buses, it is often forgotten how important they are—not just the local economy in terms of jobs, industry and the supply chain, but for connecting people to health and leisure opportunities and as support for my constituents in tackling health inequalities and having better lifestyles. That is hugely important to all of us.
We had a relatively good bus network around the county pre-covid, with high levels of satisfaction. The county council was consistently rated in the top three upper-tier authorities in the country. We annually invest more than £4 million into bus service provision, supporting 80 services that, pre-covid, carried nearly 2 million people. The commercial sector would not provide those services and we have worked really hard to sustain them and to provide lots of new infrastructure.
This year, we have provided further temporary support to another 20 services to help bus recovery. That is the thin line that prevents those services from being withdrawn, because they are not commercially viable. As with many parts of the country, there are increasing challenges for bus companies and the provision of services, including inflationary costs, driver shortages and passenger confidence, which has taken a massive hit, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe described. It is increasingly difficult for bus companies to show up on time, or even at all, and deliver a service. We get a daily constituency report of all the different bus routes that have been cancelled that day, with less than a day’s notice. That makes it incredibly difficult for people to be able to get around and get to work.
Local bus companies have undertaken big recruitment campaigns and lots of new drivers are being trained, and hopefully we will get there in time, but the viability of the routes is a huge concern. I welcome the Government’s support for the sector. We have been able to prop up some of those services because of that support. We are also trialling on-demand responsive transport, which has to be part of the future of the networks to make them sustainable, so that we are not running empty buses around fixed routes all the time. We have been able to pilot that as a result of the national bus strategy rural mobility fund. That seems to be going really well, to the point that the residents who sit just outside the pilot areas are asking when they will get access to these new services, which is really good news.
We have been indicatively allocated £30 million under the bus service improvement plan, for which I am grateful. The truth is that many fixed-route services are not likely to be viable in the future if trends continue. There are really challenging times ahead for bus services. The current combined funding will not support them all from April next year. I have asked the Government to look at greater flexibility in BSIP funding to tackle services being withdrawn in rural areas and market towns. It is really difficult to justify investing in bus lanes and other infrastructure when at the same time services are being withdrawn.
I have recently written to the Secretary of State for Transport to ask for the flexibility to spend that money on a viable bus service, rather than on bus lanes for buses that I have not got. That would be really helpful, and I hope it would be common sense. I have written a very long letter to the Secretary of State for the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, laying out a number of ways we could use local money that already exists more flexibly, rather than having to splash the cash on lots of things. We could certainly make it simpler for ourselves.
The final thing I will touch on is the macro bit—the regional bit—which is where the good stuff is happening. It speaks to what the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) said earlier on about the commitment to get these things done, and that is the devolution deal we secured this summer. It is massively meaningful, because it gives us local control over delivery of lots of these projects. As my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling touched on earlier, the figures around investment in the region make for stark reading, both in terms of transport and wider public spending and private sector spending. Even for the year 2020-2021, if we were to have the average level of national funding that would be an additional £1 billion into our region to support those services, so it is really meaningful.
That is why I am so pleased that we have been able to secure the largest gainshare investment fund in any devolution deal anywhere in the country ever, which is brilliant. It is worth just over £1.1 billion to our area, with a further transport pot yet to be determined. In the west midlands they recently got another £1 billion on top of that to invest in their local transport, which would be absolutely fantastic. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps) for signing off and making that commitment to Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and the east midlands when he was Secretary of State.
It gives us the opportunity to do all sorts of really good things, such as joined-up ticketing across the network on all types of service. Someone should be able to get from Arnold or West Bridgford to the Peak District on one ticket, across bus, train and tram with one day rate in a really simple and joined-up way in the future, and that will be hugely meaningful and impactful to local residents. It also gives us the opportunity to lay out those key routes around employment in particular, to fill the gaps on that key route network and to link up our transport systems to the sites of future jobs and investments—I mentioned STEP fusion earlier on.
We have a £20 billion investment; we can not only build the skills pipelines and support that industry, but connect people into work from the surrounding villages and towns and ensure everybody has access to those opportunities. We can also accelerate long-awaited projects such as the Robin Hood line and the Maid Marian line.
Take the Toton site, for example, which I know the Minister knows well. It is the site of significant jobs and investment in coming years. It has been in the integrated rail plan, and there is new station investment and all sorts of commercial and housing investment going on there. We need a link road, which we put in a levelling-up fund bid for and which I hope the Government will look favourably on, but we then have the ability to install that road network and public transport network to deliver projects, such as the Maid Marian line, that connect surrounding towns and villages into Toton. We will have that in our local control for the first time; that is hugely important and meaningful, and tackles some of the concerns that the hon. Member for Nottingham South laid out earlier.
We will have responsibility for the wider area transport plan by March 2024. Being able to build a joined-up strategy across the whole area is really important, because it means that residents living in Broxtowe, Mansfield or Ashfield—who may just as well travel into Derbyshire as into Nottinghamshire for work and leisure—can have a joined-up system that actually works and connects them to the places they get to, and not be constrained by boundaries.
Lilian Greenwood
I agree with many of the points that the hon. Member has made, but if the region is to be successful in planning for the future and developing the transport network that we need in Nottinghamshire—and, indeed, those links across to Derbyshire and other parts of the east midlands—do we not need certainty from the Government about investment in the future? As he will know, we spent a great deal of time planning around an HS2 station at Toton, only for it to move to East Midlands Parkway. Would certainty about both timescales and locations not enable us to do a better job in the region?
Ben Bradley
I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. As my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling said, she knows the area incredibly well and knows the transport issues incredibly well from her own experience. She is right, of course, that certainty would be hugely helpful; she pointed to the midland main line, where we perhaps have not had that in the past. I was really pleased to see that as one of the accelerated projects in the recent Budget announcement, which I am really grateful for.
What this devolution deal gives us is certainty; we know we will have that funding over the next 30 years, and we know it will be within our local control to deliver some of these projects. We have been given overall control over the integrated rail plan, which means that those HS2 stations, what we build around them and the transport connectivity to join it all together is, for the first time, within our local gift, instead of relying on Government to do that. That is a good thing because it means we can focus on our local priorities.
I totally get what the hon. Member for Nottingham South is saying, but there are some answers in this devolution settlement that can help us achieve our priorities. As I say, we will have that integrated rail plan and the HS2 element, so there is a huge growth potential. If we can get that right, that would be meaningful for investment, jobs and opportunities in our area, so I am excited about that.
I would welcome a conversation with the rail Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster), about the options and that certainty around HS2. So far, we have gotten to Parkway, Nottingham and Derby, and then Sheffield to Leeds, but there are still some options on the table for the bit in the middle. I have a view as to what those options should be, as I know many colleagues, Midlands Connect and others will have, but the timescales to make that decision are uncertain, so I would welcome the chance to have that conversation.
To summarise, there are significant challenges on a local level where we need support to maintain networks—not least bus networks, in the short term—to improve highways and to help our communities, but I welcome the long-term opportunities that come from that devolution settlement to deliver more investment and growth, to improve our transport links and to have more local say over how it all works.
I hope the Minister will take away the requirement to ensure those two things are joined up. That would enable us to sustain and protect local services while we put together those plans and strategies over the next 18 months before our devolution deal comes into force, and ensure that those things are not lost and we do not end up with a big gap in the middle. If the Department for Transport and wider Government can help us to overcome those challenges, the future for investment and transport links in our area is bright.
Draft Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) Accessibility (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2022
Lilian Greenwood Excerpts(2 years ago)
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Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Cummins.
I find myself in the somewhat unexpected position of speaking for the Opposition due to the ill health of my hon. Friend the Member for Putney. I am sure the Committee wish her a speedy recovery. I also welcome the Minister to his new position.
One in five people in the UK have a long-term illness, impairment or disability, and probably even more people have a temporary disability, which includes those with impaired vision, motor difficulties, cognitive impairments or learning difficulties, deafness or hearing loss. My hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West was right to highlight the importance of the regulations for very many of our constituents, including those with sight loss.
Accessibility is about more than just putting things online; it is about making sure that content is easily navigable for everyone, whatever their abilities or otherwise. It is important that they work for everyone. The Government’s own website, Understanding accessibility requirements for public sector bodies, has acknowledged that the people who need those websites the most are often those who find them hardest to use. As we know, when websites are made more accessible to people with disabilities, they are then often more accessible to absolutely everyone—they are faster, easier to use and reflect better use in search engines.
I was concerned to note from the same Government website that
“most public sector websites and mobile apps do not currently meet accessibility requirements. For example, a study by the Society for Innovation, technology and modernisation…found that 4 in 10 local council homepages failed basic tests for accessibility.
Common problems include websites that are not easy to use on a mobile or cannot be navigated using a keyboard, inaccessible PDF forms that cannot be read out on screen readers, and poor colour contrast that makes text difficult to read - especially for visually impaired people.”
Not only do we need to update the regulations to reflect the UK’s departure from the EU, but we need to ensure that the proposed regulations lead to what they are designed to achieve, namely improved accessibility for our constituents.
I have a number of questions. Is the Minister able to reassure us that the web content accessibility guidelines are of a comparable standard to those in the EU directive? When can we expect the first model accessibility statement from the UK Government? Does the Minister expect it to add to current obligations and make it more demanding of public sector bodies? Can he share more details about the monitoring methodology? Will it largely reflect the EU regulations, or will a different approach be taken?
This year, Parliament passed the British Sign Language Act 2022. That places a requirement on Government Departments to report on what they have done to promote and facilitate the use of British sign language in their public communications. I know from my own work in the House how BSL users often find that they are unable to access Government information because it is not suitably translated. Will the monitoring process capture information regarding the accessibility of websites and mobile apps to BSL users?
When can we expect the first monitoring publication from the Minister? As for the requirement to publish subsequent monitoring publications every three years, and given what it says on the Government’s website about many websites and mobile apps currently failing to meet accessibility requirements, would more frequent monitoring reports help to drive change and enable the Government to monitor better whether improvements are made as a result of the proposed regulations?
What level of accessibility is acceptable to the Minister? If as many as four in 10 local council homepages fail basic tests for accessibility, what is the picture across public sector websites and mobile apps? What assessment has he made of that? What is the target and how quickly does he expect to reach it?
I look forward to the Minister’s answers, because I am sure that many of our constituents with disabilities who experience not being able to use websites and apps effectively will also look for those answers. My hon. Friend the Member for Putney sent me a note to say that one of her constituents who was blind had written to her to say that they were unable to access covid travel guidelines at the height of the pandemic. What else will the Minister do to drive accessibility and ensure that the UK is a world leader in that respect?
Brendan Clarke-Smith
I thank the Opposition spokesperson for her contribution. I recognised many of the issues she highlighted, because, as someone with dyspraxia, I had difficulties accessing things, certainly during my school examinations. It is something that has great personal meaning to me.
On the scope of the regulations, they are made under section 8 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act, which allows deficiencies in regulations to be remedied now that we have left the EU. The UK has a strong commitment to supporting disabled people under the Equality Act and of course under the Disability Discrimination Act as well. The regulations only apply to the public sector, but the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport will explore whether similar regulations could be introduced for the private sector. That policy has currently paused pending the outcome of the appeal on the lawfulness of the National Disability Strategy. I agree with the hon. Lady that we must encourage others to be onboard, not just the public sector.
On the enforcement of accessibility statements, the need to publish those was a new burden on the public sector and some grace has been given to it to enable it to publish them. Our monitoring shows that around 90% of sites have published a statement, and we will consider further future enforcement. The hon. Lady asked whether that monitoring was sufficient, and I can tell her that more than 900 sites and apps have been monitored so far across the public sector by the monitoring team in the digital service. The proposed regulations will allow that monitoring to focus on the sites and services that disabled people use regularly, and to use new technology to target the least accessible public sector websites.
As for the findings so far, the Cabinet Office published a report in December 2021 detailing the findings from accessibility monitoring of public sector websites and apps. Although accessibility issues were identified on nearly all tested websites, after sending a report to the website owner and giving them some time to fix the issues, 59% had fixed them or had short-term timelines for when the websites would be fixed. The main issues identified were the lack of visible focus on screen, which affects keyboard users, low colour contrasts on webpages, which affects visually impaired users and technical website construction issues that affect users of assistive technology.
Lilian Greenwood
I welcome the Minister’s response on that point, and obviously it is good news that when public sector providers were told that their website did not meet accessibility standards, 59% of them corrected it either immediately or in a short time. What did his Department do about the 41% that did not respond in that manner?
Brendan Clarke-Smith
That is a fair question and is exactly why we are introducing the regulations, because they will enable us to take matters further. I mentioned National Disability Strategy and the appeal pending; I cannot give any further detail, but pending the result of that appeal, the strategy will also enable us to take matters further. The model accessibility statement is published on GOV.UK, and currently mirrors the EU version. We will look at improvements to make it more useful, and enforcement will play a part in that.
Lilian Greenwood
Given that arrangements have been in place for some time to improve accessibility, and the Minister has identified problems, what assessment has he made of the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s ability to enforce the regulations? Is it sufficiently resourced to do so? Often, we place the onus on individuals to make complaints, when surely we should be more proactive in ensuring that websites and mobile apps are accessible in the first place. People should not be required to jump through hoops to raise concerns, and only then do we enforce.
Brendan Clarke-Smith
I agree. We are being proactive by introducing the regulations, and formulating the strategy. We encourage the public and private sectors to get involved and not just wait to act on a complaint. The Government are actively pursuing the matter and identified cases have been passed to the equalities bodies for further compliance and enforcement work.
I am grateful to hon. Members for their contributions. The Government are committed to improve the everyday lives of disabled people, and access to public information and services is vital. The SI makes sure that the public sector remains accessible to all as it moves online.
Lilian Greenwood
May I ask the Minister again about the British Sign Language Act? Will the monitoring process properly capture what is being done to facilitate and promote the use of British sign language? If he is not able to answer me now, can he write to me?
Brendan Clarke-Smith
I am more than happy to write to the hon. Lady. My mother is a BSL signer, so once again, this is something I deeply care about. I expect that such work will be implemented as part of the accessibility process. I have already mentioned support for those who are blind or deaf, but of course everybody has a right to accessibility. We are committed to that. The EHRC also has set a strategic priority and will take action against public sector bodies that do not meet the regulations.
I commend the regulations to the Committee and I hope that colleagues will support them.
Question put and agreed to.
Tributes to Her Late Majesty the Queen
Lilian Greenwood Excerpts(2 years, 1 month ago)
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Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
It is with great sadness that I stand to pay tribute to Her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth. Over the past 48 hours, we have all reflected on her unparalleled role in our national life and have witnessed the tremendous affection and admiration in which she is held both at home and around the world. Yesterday evening we heard the words of our new King as he paid tribute to a dearly loved mother. On behalf of my constituents in Nottingham South, I extend my deepest sympathies to King Charles and all the royal family as they experience this very personal loss.
As so many colleagues have said, having reigned for a remarkable 70 years, the Queen has been a constant throughout our lives, and the milestones of her reign have left their mark in our own stories. I still have my silver jubilee envelope, but sadly not the coin, that we received in primary school. A photo of my youngest daughter as a toddler dressed up in gold crown and red velvet cloak for the golden jubilee hangs on the wall at home. Of course, I will never forget meeting the Queen on her diamond jubilee visit to Nottingham. Having waved to the crowd from the council house balcony, she confided that their cheers were even louder than outside Buckingham Palace.
The Queen has provided that much-needed point of stillness through some of the most turbulent times in our country’s history, offering leadership, comfort and hope in the darkest hours, but she has also been a vital part of collective celebrations, including in our city of Nottingham. Her first official visit to Nottingham in 1949 as Princess Elizabeth was the highlight of the city’s quincentenary celebrations. Half the city will have joyous memories of her presenting the FA cup to Nottingham Forest captain Jack Burkitt at Wembley in 1959, but everyone will have cheered when she came to congratulate ice dancing gold medallists Torvill and Dean, following their triumph in the 1984 winter Olympics.
The Queen witnessed huge change in our city. On a visit in 1968 she toured the immense Raleigh factory in Radford. Thirty-one years later, she was back at that same spot. Bicycle production was all but over, and the Triumph Road site was being transformed into the University of Nottingham’s Jubilee Campus, now attracting students from around the globe and researching cutting-edge technologies for the new century. Perhaps the city’s most familiar manifestation of Her Majesty is the Queen’s Medical Centre, which was the biggest purpose-built hospital in Europe when it was officially opened by the Queen in 1977. It was also over budget, controversial and delayed—features of infrastructure projects that I suspect were not unfamiliar to the Queen then and certainly not later.
The loss of our Queen has moved people around the world. On my behalf and that of the people of Nottingham South, and Nottinghamians everywhere, I say thank you for a life of exceptional public service, dignity, kindness and good humour. May she rest in peace. Long live the King.
Standards in Public Life
Lilian Greenwood Excerpts(2 years, 5 months ago)
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Angela Rayner
Actions speak louder than words, and my hon. Friend hits on the point that the actions of this Prime Minister have debased the rules, have brought shame on Parliament and on the office of the Prime Minister, which is an absolute privilege, and have lost the trust of much of the public. The Prime Minister boasts about his victory in 2019, but he has now squandered all that good will with his behaviour. While people were locked down and unable to see their loved ones, cleaners were having to clean sick off the floor and wine off the walls as others were partying on down in Downing Street.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
My right hon. Friend makes a powerful point. Has she had the same experience that I had this weekend when I was out meeting constituents celebrating the jubilee? They were absolutely disgusted—particularly those who are not traditional Labour supporters—by the behaviour of the Prime Minister. They feel that he is not only letting them down, but letting our country and its reputation down.
Angela Rayner
I absolutely agree. I have heard Ministers talking in the media in the past 24 hours about how we must draw a line and we must move on, but many people in this country cannot draw a line and cannot move on while this Prime Minister is in office, because it triggers what they experienced and the trauma that their families faced during the crisis.
Debate on the Address
Lilian Greenwood Excerpts(2 years, 5 months ago)
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Ben Bradley
I understand the point the hon. Lady is making, but she is not quite right given that the Labour Government had 13 years and there was a great amount of time for the delivery of a number of those projects. I was eight years old when the ’97 Labour Government came to power. Labour had a fair old while to deliver on some of those things. My constituency has been represented by the Conservatives for only five years in its entire history, and that has always been me. We have been working on a number of projects. This Government, this Prime Minister and this levelling-up agenda have been around for a very brief period of time.
We have already talked about the hundreds of millions of pounds of investment that have been secured for my own constituency. We can talk about the towns fund, additional support and investment in skills, capital investment for our college that we have not seen before, and new capital investment in our hospitals. All that is in train. Some of is visible; some of it is not yet visible. We need to be able to point to those things not just in my constituency but across the country in some of the seats that we won only a matter of two years ago where new, talented Conservative MPs are making the case for that investment. We need to see outcomes across the board. It is no good standing up and saying that we have made promises of money because at some stage residents will say, “Where is that new town centre building, where is that new project, where is my shiny new town centre?”
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
I well understand the concerns of people in Nottingham and Nottinghamshire, as the hon. Gentleman does, but are not many of those people saying to him, right now, “Why aren’t the Government doing something to put more money in my pocket?” I am sure he is hearing from his constituents, as I am from mine, that they are worried sick about paying their bills. At the moment, when they are really struggling, what he is talking about is not doing anything to help those families, or anything to help our high streets in Nottinghamshire either.
Ben Bradley
The hon. Lady is right that constituents are worried—they are in my constituency and I am sure they are in hers. They also recognise that the Government cannot flick a switch and fix everything, nor should anybody suggest that they can. We have the £22 billion package of intervention that we have already brought forward and a commitment to more in the pipeline and coming over the course of summer and into the autumn. The Chancellor has already made that commitment. Very few residents in my constituency come to me expecting the Government to have a magic bullet, and it is slightly false that so many Opposition Members seem to suggest that there is one when there is not.
The levelling-up Bill is hugely important for our region —more so, perhaps, than for many—because it contains the mechanism for us to bring forward a devolution deal for the east midlands, Nottinghamshire, Nottingham, Derbyshire and Derby. That is the delivery mechanism for many of the things that we have talked about. The hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern), who is no longer in her place, talked about brownfield funding—the ability to bring forward sites and to have more clout over what we do with that funding. That is part of our devolution negotiations. She raised other examples, and I sat here thinking that we can do that if we bring forward this devolution arrangement and track on with the negotiation.
The only thing that will slow down the course of that negotiation, which should be done by the end of the year, is the legislation, which will take longer. I call on the Government to prioritise that and bring it forward to let us get those levers and that additional funding. The west midlands, our partner that we often look to enviously, has had billions and billions of pounds of additional investment since it got its deal just six or seven years ago. We want that, and we can bring it forward quickly if the Government commit to bringing forward the legislation in a timely way in the spring. If it is May rather than March, we will probably have to wait 12 months before we can actually deliver on the outcomes that we want to see.
I urge the Government to crack on and prioritise the devolution element of the levelling-up Bill and agenda, which is massively important to get these outcomes for my constituents. We need not just promises but outcomes to show residents who, in many cases, are in seats that used to be represented by Labour and who voted for this Prime Minister and this Conservative Government to deliver for them. They will need to see those outcomes. The mechanisms to deliver that are in today’s Queen’s Speech, so I urge the Government to bring them forward as quickly as possible.
Referral of Prime Minister to Committee of Privileges
Lilian Greenwood Excerpts(2 years, 6 months ago)
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Tim Farron
I am grateful to the Father of the House for that clarification. My point absolutely stands: this is only a local election issue—and it is—because the Conservative party has not delivered the justice that it was in its hands to deliver.
My patch has an interesting history. It was Conservative for 100 years until we won it in 2005. We had some great wins and some narrow wins, and there is one ward that we have never won, even in my best years—although perhaps they are ahead of me, who knows? I was knocking on doors in that ward and met a couple who had sometimes voted Conservative, had normally voted UK Independence party and had voted Brexit party but had never voted for us. They told me that they were going to vote for us in the local elections because it was the only way they could think of to deliver justice. They felt weak and powerless because of a man with whom they agreed on many issues who they felt could no longer lead the country because of that lack of integrity.
We are two years on from when many of those things took place. Our memories can play tricks on us, we move on and we do not live in the moment of those times. They were not pleasant, and we choose to forget them to a degree, don’t we? However, it is important that we do not forget what that meant, not just for the elderly couple I spoke to on Sunday, but for many others—for hundreds of people that we know. For weeks on end, I wrote letters of commiseration to people who had lost loved ones. We all did that. There were people who could not be with a dying parent or a dying child. There were people who spent Christmas alone, and for many of them it was their last Christmas. It was so hard to explain to young children why their birthday parties could not take place. We went through all sorts of privations.
Gill Haigh, the chief exec of Cumbria Tourism, and I argued to stop people visiting the Lake district, even though we knew it was ruining our economy, because we believed in the health, safety and wellbeing of the people who would have come and of those who work in the community. Sacrifices were made and the Prime Minister made laws that we agreed with and that were important. Why? To save lives, to protect the NHS, to do the right British thing and look after one another, and to love our neighbour. Yet within hours, it appears, the ink drying on his edicts, he was habitually breaking them. There is no question but that this was and is a resignation matter.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful point. Does he agree that some of the defences offered for the Prime Minister have been hugely insulting to the other people who worked throughout the pandemic? A dentist in my constituency said that,
“we did not have drinks after work because this would have been unprofessional and irresponsible.”
Does he agree that the fury that health professionals feel because of the sacrifices they made during the pandemic is entirely understandable?
Tim Farron
The hon. Lady makes an excellent point. It is deeply offensive. One reason why the story has not gone away is that some of the defences are even more offensive. Some Government Members—a minority, I will absolutely state—have said that teachers were up to it, nurses were up to it, and that everybody broke the rules. I did not, I am pretty sure that most people in the Chamber did not, I know that most of my constituents did not and I know that those in the caring professions, in particular, absolutely did not. In one sense, they did it gladly because we were loving our neighbour and doing the right thing by protecting people, not because of slavish obedience to authoritarianism. I am a liberal; I do not like these laws or rules, but I knew that they were necessary to protect lives. So did the Prime Minister, yet he broke them.
As I think we have a little bit of time—I will not go on for long, I promise—I want to address the issues of forgiveness that have been discussed. As a Christian, I want to reflect on those. I was deeply affected by the speech made by the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker), and by the comments of some other Members, about the extent to which we should be seeking to forgive the Prime Minister.
I do not know how contrite the Prime Minister is. I do not know how sincere his repentance, or his apology. Only two beings know the answer to that question, and I will not make any assumption that I know it, because I am definitely not one of them. I will say this, however. I believe—and this is one of the most radical and offensive things about Christianity—that forgiveness is available for everything and for everyone. However, even forgiven sins bear consequences. My reading from The Bible last night was Luke 6:27—“Love your enemies.” I am careful not to think of Members on the other side of the House, or members of any other party, as enemies. They are sometimes a colleague and sometimes an opponent, but they are not my enemy. There are times, though, when you disagree with someone so very much—as I do with the Prime Minister on so many issues—that you can, in your mind, make them an enemy, and I need to repent of that. Am I bitter, and seeking my vengeance on the Prime Minister? No, and it would be wrong if I did.
What I think we need to remember is this: in forgiving somebody, we must not let them stain the reputation of this place and of our politics. To say sorry is one thing, but we should remember the story of Zacchaeus. As Jesus comes into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, Zacchaeus, a tax collector who has ripped off his kith and kin for many years and is a great sinner, repents—great—but then he also makes recompense. He does more than just say sorry; he gives back four times what he has taken.
I think we need to remember that accepting an apology does not mean that there is not a consequence. The Prime Minister has not borne the consequence. What does not bearing that consequence mean? It sets the bar for what is acceptable in our public life at a subterranean level. What a shocking example this is for all of us here, for all those who might follow us, and for everyone else in the country. It tells us that it is possible to do things that are not honest, and to set rules for others and choose not to follow them, because you are somehow better than the people whom you lead. That is not acceptable, and it is not right.
What is also not right is to hide behind the suffering of the people in Ukraine as an excuse not to take action now. It is fundamentally weak for some Conservative Members to say that we must wait until some indeterminate time when that suffering might be over to take the action that needs to be taken. The simple fact is that Ukraine is a reason why the Prime Minister should go, and should go now, because we are in a state of paralysis. We know that every decision he takes is coloured by his desire to survive, and affects our own position as a country. We are diverted by this ongoing soap opera, this saga, this sorry state of affairs.
The sad conclusion I have reached is that we now have a Conservative party that is too ashamed of the Prime Minister to defend him, but too weak to remove him. Today is the day when the Conservatives need to discover their backbone.
G20 and COP26 World Leaders Summit
Lilian Greenwood Excerpts(3 years ago)
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The Prime Minister
I thank my hon. Friend for his unrelenting invitation. Of course I will do my utmost to oblige him; he is a great campaigner for clean power. As he knows, we are taking forward plans for SMRs as well.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
Transport makes up the largest share of UK carbon emissions, but rail travel is clean and green, so I ask again: why on earth is the Prime Minister choosing to make it cheaper to take domestic flights, while failing to set out a proper plan for rail electrification, failing to confirm a high-speed rail line to the east midlands and the north, and putting up rail fares?
The Prime Minister
We are investing massively in rail in the way that I described at PMQs earlier, not just with HS2, but with Northern Powerhouse Rail and the integrated rail plan. The hon. Lady objects to domestic air travel, but the vision that she should support is the idea of moving away from using tonnes of kerosene to hurl planes into the air. We can do it with other approaches, and that is what we should be following.
Public Health
Lilian Greenwood Excerpts(3 years, 11 months ago)
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Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
My constituents have, with very few exceptions, done what was asked of them. They have made immense sacrifices, playing their part in getting infection rates down to protect our community and our hospitals, but they feel that the Government have not done their bit—they have not used the lockdown to fix test and trace. We know that public health teams can do better, but Ministers must give them the resources to deliver. The Government also have not ensured that when people are told to self-isolate, they can afford to do so. Ministers must extend eligibility for the £500 support payment to users of the NHS covid app and look again at the level of statutory sick pay.
The Government have not done enough to support businesses and their workers, especially those that still cannot reopen under the new tier 3. It cannot be right or fair that tier 3 areas get the same support as those in tiers 1 and 2, or that some self-employed workers and small businesses are still excluded from support altogether. Our cafés and restaurants, and especially our pubs, are suffering. Despite all their investment in covid-safe measures, they remain closed at what would normally be their busiest time of year. The Government must step up and give them the help they need, or I fear that they simply will not reopen at all, and some places will lose their vital community facilities.
My constituents are deeply disappointed that, despite a huge fall in cases, Nottingham remains in tier 3. They want to know what we need to achieve to come out of tier 3 when it is reviewed on 16 December. People need to feel that the allocations are fair—and they do not—and they need clarity about what we are aiming for, rather than a constant moving of the goalposts.
We also need clarity about the restrictions themselves and the evidence on which they are based. Nottingham is home to the National Ice Centre. Our city is famous for its past Olympic champions, but it is also the training ground for the gold medallists of the future. Why are ice rinks classed as leisure and entertainment venues and forced to remain closed when other indoor sports facilities are allowed to reopen? What about 10-pin bowling? The sector does not qualify for 5% VAT because HMRC says that a bowling alley is a sports facility, but unlike gyms and leisure centres, it is not permitted to open.
Bowling alleys have invested in measures to ensure that their venues are covid-secure, and they are not the only ones. Nottingham Playhouse has spent £80,000 on implementing measures to secure “See it Safely” status. The team has worked really hard to give Nottingham families their traditional panto trip, but now they are closed, even though not a single case of covid in the old tier 3 originated in a theatre. Will the Minister please rethink that restriction?