(3 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberUrgent 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
Order. I wish to make a short statement before we take the next urgent question. Last Thursday evening, the Government announced changes to the countries listed on the green and red travel lists. They also announced that they intended that fully vaccinated UK residents returning from amber list countries would not have to isolate from later in the summer. These are important announcements. They should be made to this House first. The fact that Transport Ministers were answering oral questions in the Chamber that morning only strengthens the case.
Although I do not have to explain my reasons for allowing the urgent question, in this case I want to say to those on the Government Benches that if Ministers choose to make important announcements outside this Chamber first, they must not be surprised that I will grant urgent questions on those matters. In fact, I will just continue to grant them on the basis that there may be a statement, because it seems that this Chamber is being ridden over roughshod. I will continue to make sure that this House gets an opportunity to scrutinise the Government, but it would be better for all concerned if the Government simply followed their own ministerial code and made important announcements to this House, to which Members are elected to represent their constituents and to ensure that Ministers and Secretaries of State can be scrutinised with questions—not via the media, but via MPs.
I call Jim McMahon to ask the urgent question.
(3 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberI absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. Better transport is central to the Government’s agenda to level up the north. The TransPennine route upgrade is already under way, our national bus strategy is being delivered and we will soon publish our integrated rail plan for the midlands and the north, ensuring that transformational rail improvements are delivered as quickly as possible.
It is just that we need the TransPennine trains to go through Chorley, not Wigan.
The Penistone line in my constituency connects major Yorkshire towns and cities such as Sheffield, Barnsley and Huddersfield, as well as serving smaller communities such as Penistone and Dodworth, but with only one train per hour in each direction, it does not meet the needs of local people or businesses. I have just submitted a bid to the levelling-up fund, with my hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Mark Eastwood), to upgrade the Penistone line and improve the service, but does the Minister agree that we must invest in these secondary commuter lines in the north if we are to see the same benefits in our city regions that other parts of the country already enjoy?
I remind the hon. Gentleman that his constituents in Scotland, like those across the UK, have benefited from up to £1.3 billion of support to help them transition to electric vehicles. Shall we look at the facts, Mr Speaker? The plug-in car grant, the home charge grant, the on-street chargers and the workplace chargers are all funded by the UK Government for the benefit of the hon. Gentleman’s constituents and those across the United Kingdom.
I do apologise for the noise. There is a helicopter somewhere overhead. I know it is Transport questions, but it is getting a bit much.
As someone who is regularly stuck in traffic on the A13, I think no one wants to return to the levels of pollution we saw before the pandemic began, particularly as emerging evidence indicates that exposure to air pollution increases the severity of coronavirus symptoms and other respiratory conditions. That is why I am so glad to see the work done by brilliant, publicly run light rail systems such as Tyne and Wear metro and Tramlink, led by fantastic local Labour administrations. Light rail networks are an effective means of reducing congestion and pollution given that they produce next to no pollution at the point of use. What assurances will the Minister give, therefore, to support projects that incorporate light rail, tram trains, and electric and hydrogen buses such as the mass transit system proposed by the new West Yorkshire Combined Authority Mayor?
I have not seen that particular application yet, but we do know that the Government have put in a record amount of more than £2 billion of active travel funding for walking and cycling. I know that the hon. Lady will be delighted that Oxfordshire investment has now reached £355 million in different transport environments, and that is on top of the £760 million for East West Rail, so when it comes to investing in her constituency in Oxfordshire, this Conservative Government are really going for it.
Is the Secretary of State hearing, as I am, that our airports and Border Force are getting people through arrivals more quickly and therefore more safely? Is he confident that we will be in a position to get more people who have been double-jabbed through arrivals with digitisation and the NHS app delivering proof of a double jab?
The Public and Commercial Services Union continues to take industrial action, which is targeting the services and having a negative impact on some of the most vulnerable people in society. The fact of the matter is that the safety concerns have been signed off by Public Health Wales, the Health and Safety Executive, the Welsh Government and the UK Government, yet this strike continues and now is apparently not about healthcare, but about demands over money instead. Will the hon. Gentleman actually ask people to go back to their work in order to help vulnerable people in this country? That is the question and this House needs to know.
Next question, Andrew Griffith. He is not here, so let us go to Scottish National party spokesperson, Gavin Newlands.
I have lost count of the number of times I have asked this Government about their long-abandoned commitment to specific support for the aviation sector. Despite the Secretary of State’s tinkering with the traffic light system, it looks increasingly unlikely that there will be any summer season. It is clear to the dogs on the street that an aviation, travel and tourism recovery package and a targeted extension of furlough is now an imperative, so how does he plan to better support the sector and its workers, such as those who were at the travel day of action protest yesterday on College Green, as has been mentioned?
I join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to hauliers such as Stewart, who have literally kept the country moving over the past 18 months. My Department will continue the work started last year to engage with stakeholders, including the freight associations, to encourage the development of more safe, secure and high-quality lorry parking.
I can reassure my right hon. Friend that that website is already up to date and will be accurate. It is the case that some older vehicles and historic vehicles—the type of cars which I know he is very keen on—cannot run on E10 fuel. It will be clearly marked, and he will be pleased to hear that E5 will continue to be available, so that historic cars can continue to travel on our roads.
I am now suspending the House for three minutes to enable the necessary arrangements to be made for the next business.
(3 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberI am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I have to say that I sympathise, because I appreciate that it must have been difficult to take in a report of 114 pages in the time available. Skimming through it and coming up with questions will have been difficult, and I therefore understand why he asked some questions that are answered fully in the White Paper itself. Less understandable and harder to fathom is how it was possible to put out press comments about the content of the White Paper last night before it was even seen, including a lot of points already covered in the White Paper, and therefore rather misfiring in direction. Let me try to pick through some of the questions asked.
Why two and a half years? As I mentioned, the breakdown in the timetable took place three years ago this week. Keith Williams was appointed to carry out the review, which he has done at no cost to the taxpayer, I should mention, and brilliantly. There was this thing called covid, and we went into the second and third lockdowns in November, so it was perfectly proper to wait until we had a clear indication and for the vaccine to be deployed before coming to the House with the full report. That also enabled us to bring that report up to date with what is actually happening in the running of those rail services.
The hon. Gentleman asked about the operator of last resort and whether it will still exist. The answer is in the report: yes, very much so. As he knows, I already effectively run Northern and the east coast mainline through the operator of last resort. It is not about disguising cuts of any type. He keeps coming back to £1 billion of control period 6 rail funding. Because of covid, operators were unable to spend the money, but they will have that money to spend in the next period. None the less, we have ongoing one of the biggest ever rail transformation programmes, if not the biggest.
The timescales for change are all in the White Paper, and the good news is that we will get going on this immediately. The hon. Gentleman will notice that the bottom left-hand corner on the front of the White Paper says “CP 423”, which means that it is command paper 423, which means that we can get on with it, and we are doing that from this moment. A very good example of that is flexi-tickets. He says that there is not enough detail. I am pleased to let the House know that that detail will all be available on 21 June, and that they will go on sale on 28 June. If he takes the time to look in the notes to editors at the back, he will see a large number of examples of what fares will be. These will save people money in each circumstance if they are travelling two or three days a week.
The hon. Gentleman asked about freight. I refer him to page 78 of the White Paper, which talks about freight and our desire to make sure that those freight paths are available within our railway. The advantage of Great British Railways looking after all this is that we will be able to accommodate freight paths. He asked about the decarbonisation that freight will help to bring, and he is absolutely right to focus on that. I am pleased to tell him that a transport decarbonisation plan will be published before the summer that will focus very much on how we already use the best form of transport when it comes to decarbonisation in order to shift more freight around.
The hon. Gentleman asked about the joined-up nature of transport, with people, as he says, waiting in the cold sometimes for transport that may or may not turn up. I know he has not had long to look at the White Paper, but he only has to get as far as the foreword to find my talking about that exact issue. He asks about the way this will work with devolution. He will be pleased to hear that I spoke to his friend the Mayor of Manchester only yesterday, and I was pleased that he warmly welcomed the White Paper today. Page 41 has all that detail.
I know that Oppositions, almost for Opposition’s sake, have to nit-pick and find problems, but the reality is that the nationalisation that they would impose on this country would lead to fewer passengers, as it did last time; fewer stations, with stations closed in our constituencies, as it did last time under British Rail; track being cut, as it was before; and appalling sandwiches. We are not going back to the days of nationalisation. We can do better than that.
I welcome the statement, the White Paper and indeed the birth of Great British Railways. We look forward to the Secretary of State giving more detail to the Select Committee on Transport this Wednesday with Keith Williams. In the meantime, let me ask about page 56 of the White Paper, which deals with passenger service contracts, promising:
“Revenue incentives and risk sharing”.
How will that work to ensure that the private sector continues to invest in a way that it has done over the past 20 or so years, when it doubled passenger numbers? Page 71 talks of “New flexible season tickets” allowing eight days’ travel in a 28-day period. Does that equate to 28% of the cost that passengers would expect to pay and therefore make it an incentive to travel in our new world?
(3 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberI can confirm to my hon. Friend that we will be having the Joint Biosecurity Centre look at four principal factors: the level of coronavirus in any given country; the number of vaccines that has been dispensed in that country; the concern over any particular variants; and the quality of the data. Those are the facts and figures that it will be looking at. None the less, I do share his concerns about when a country jumps from one category to another, and we saw that last year. We are taking a couple of different steps to try to help with that. One is to have a green watch list where we are able to flag up, perhaps a couple of weeks in advance, to say that we are looking at a variation of interest, which could turn into a variation of concern, in order to help provide a bit more forward guidance this year.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma) is bang on the money today. Border Force is operating an onerous, manual, assurance check on inbound passengers’ covid compliance despite there being very low incidence of non-compliance and robust pre-departure checks by carriers, causing huge queues in our immigration halls. The Secretary of State likes his taskforces. Where is the one to alleviate these bottlenecks before our skies reopen on 17 May?
After five years, Andy Burnham is finally getting on with franchising bus services in Greater Manchester, and this is a step that I broadly welcome. However, there are many towns, like Glossop, Hadfield and New Mills, that are just outside Greater Manchester and rely heavily on cross-border bus services. Does the Minister agree that the Mayor of Greater Manchester and Derbyshire County Council need to work closely together to ensure that my constituents are not forgotten in any changes to bus services, and that we should take this opportunity to improve local bus routes, including delivering a badly needed direct bus from Glossop and Hadfield to Tameside General Hospital?
Indeed, Mr Speaker. I thank my hon. Friend for being such a great champion of active travel across his constituency of High Peak. Of course, it is for the Greater Manchester Combined Authority to determine the geographical area of the franchising scheme. Local transport authorities may also join together to produce joint plans and should seek to do so where local economies and travel-to-work areas overlap significantly. He makes a strong case, and I certainly hope that the local authorities in question will listen to him.
Funnily enough, I do not agree. It is worth the hon. Gentleman’s Scottish voters understanding that that money is available through the Barnett consequentials. If bus services were as good as is claimed, then it would not be the case that in Dundee bus users were being warned just last November to expect big changes to services, the worst since the 1950s, which would have negative impacts for older people and those dependent on bus services. I do not think it is quite as rosy as he likes to make it sound. This Government in Westminster are committed to decarbonising the whole of the United Kingdom.
Let’s get beyond next Thursday. Then it will be easier for all of us. [Laughter.]
The hon. Lady is absolutely right to stand up for her constituents, particularly those who may have special circumstances. There is a process in place for special circumstances to be considered. I would be interested to understand why in the case of her constituent, from her question, it does not look like that was effective. We would be very happy to investigate that particular case, although I understand that would of course be retrospective.
I note your remark, Mr Speaker. I thank my hon. Friend for her point. I am not a man in a grey suit, so I can reassure her fully, and I thank her for the massively constructive way she has engaged with the national bus strategy since its launch. The way she has stood up for her constituents is absolutely exemplary, and I know from the discussions that she and I have had how important that is. By October, local transport authorities are expected to provide bus service improvement plans, which should be developed in collaboration with local people to ensure that they genuinely reflect the area’s needs.
I will answer my hon. Friend. East West Rail, the company behind the new line, is aiming to deliver an entirely zero-carbon railway. It will be considering conventional and emerging technology solutions for powering trains, which could be part-electric and part-hydrogen or battery in the future, for example, so that services that operate along the whole length of the route are zero carbon.
Sometimes I forget that I am wearing the mask, Mr Speaker, but I thank you very much for calling me.
Airlines have had a difficult past 12 months. Belfast City airport, Belfast International airport and Londonderry airport are important Northern Ireland regional airports. Can the Minister confirm the Government’s support for them, which I know has been there, and that every effort will be taken to ensure that they can and will be part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland’s strategy for the future?
My hon. Friend is a brilliant champion of connectivity for her constituency, and as a result, my right hon. Friend the Transport Secretary was in north Wales early this week, discussing plans to upgrade the A55 with the Welsh Conservative candidate standing in May’s election. We look forward to the final Union connectivity review recommendations ahead of the spending review, in which we will consider funding plans for delivering improved UK-wide connectivity. However, I must say to the hon. Lady that the fastest way for her constituents to secure upgrades to the A55 is to vote for a Welsh Conservative Government, who have pledged to end Labour’s neglect of north Wales.
That brings me on to my final point, which is just to say that I will be pleased when next Thursday is out of the way, but I remind Members who are going into other constituencies, other than for a private, personal visit, to please ensure that they notify the MP. That goes to all sides, because I am getting letters of complaint. Please, I do not need any more letters of complaint: just abide by good practice.
(3 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberDudley is indeed pioneering research and development into very light rail, and I am pleased that the West Midlands Combined Authority recently signed off funding into the Dudley interchange. Mayor Andy Street’s vision is for it to be the best-connected region in the country, and the Chancellor has confirmed the £4.2 billion intra-city transport fund, as well as the levelling up fund, in the Budget. I am sure that, with his help, Dudley will get its fair share of transport infrastructure funding. I am looking forward to riding the metro to Dudley Zoo very soon.
Investing in improved transport infrastructure is well recognised by my hon. Friend as a necessity for turbocharging our economy and levelling up. Beautiful Hastings and Rye has some of the most antiquated road and rail infrastructure in the country, which inhibits economic growth and is the reason why HS1 must be prioritised.
If we are serious about levelling up left-behind communities, does my hon. Friend not agree that HS1, as promised by previous Ministers, now needs to be delivered? What discussions has he had with the Treasury to ensure that funding will be available to finance such a vital project?
The hon. Gentleman has been in this House long enough to know that the Prime Minister is always right.
Thank you, Mr Speaker. As I have just told the House, the budget for Northern Powerhouse Rail available to Transport for the North last year was £59 million; next year it is £67 million. Looking at that funding alone, it has all the money it needs in order to deliver on the priorities in the north of England. At the same time, we are getting on with delivering, with £29 billion invested in transport across the north of England since 2010, while in the Budget we committed to over £40 billion more for transport and rail infrastructure projects, £17.5 billion in renewals and upgrades over the next three years, and £22.6 billion for HS2. We are getting on with delivering, levelling up and building back better from covid-19.
I welcome the right hon. Gentleman, who is a new member of the Transport Committee, and look forward to working with him as we move forward on this agenda especially. We have met on this subject previously. He will know that local authorities across the country are doing a marvellous job. Devon County Council has received £1.6 million from the active travel fund in this financial year and is spending it very wisely. There are local authorities that have not consulted on schemes quite as well as we would have liked in the past. We are trying to rectify that, and we are working from the centre with local authorities that are struggling to deliver schemes, to ensure that they deliver them properly, with the appropriate consultation, and that taxpayers’ money is spent wisely.
My hon. Friend is a tireless champion for Wakefield. A bypass for Denby Dale would be a matter for the local highways authority—in this case, Kirklees Council—to consider, but it is something it could consider as a bid into the Government’s recently announced £4.8 billion levelling up fund, which has improving local transport connectivity as one of its top priorities.
The Department is considering my hon. Friend’s ideas fund bid for the East Didsbury to Stockport Metrolink line. We are working closely with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government as part of the assessment process, and I am sure my hon. Friend the rail Minister would be delighted to meet my hon. Friend.
On 12 April, my hon. Friend can look forward to seeing that report published. We will ensure that it contains a route not only out of lockdown for travel but, all being well, and as long the vaccination programme is going as it is at the moment here and internationally, for international travel. I stress to the House that while we are in control of our vaccination programme—44% of our adult population are now vaccinated—we do not have control over other countries’ vaccinations. That is why we think we will require a combination of vaccination and testing for international travel to work again. There is a lot to be done. We are working hard, along with my hon. Friend the Aviation Minister, and we will report back to the House on 12 April.
I am now suspending the House for five minutes to enable the necessary arrangements to be made for the next business.
(3 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberMy hon. Friend is of course correct. We have had the failure to deliver Crossrail on time, £5.2 billion; higher pensions at TfL, £828 million; the fare freeze, with £640 million of fares not collected; and fare dodging, £400 million. I know that that is all just millions and billions to us, but it all adds up.
Thank you, Mr Speaker. Instead of levelling up the north, where this Government have cut £4 million from Transport for the North, the Minister and his Government clearly intend to level down London’s transport network. This is not the first time we have had to come to the House to ask about the Government’s support for TfL because it did not go far enough in the first place. At a time when public transport ridership has collapsed and we are still a long way off recovering to pre-pandemic ridership levels, we must think about redistribution. That is clearly the right approach. Vehicle excise duty, which raises £500 million from drivers who live in London, is invested almost exclusively in roads outside the city. Keeping it in the capital would enable TfL to continue to be a world-class transport provider and boost our nation’s economy, so will the Transport Secretary commit to looking at this as a way to support TfL?
I am disappointed that the hon. Gentleman missed my speech yesterday at Davos where I addressed that subject in detail. In fact, I want to correct the record of the House: the Jet Zero Council has actually met on two occasions and—wait for the punchline—has sub-committees that have met on many occasions, because they are the work horses of the Jet Zero Council and they bring together academia, the sector itself, Government and international partners to deliver zero-carbon flight by 2020. I refer him to my speech of yesterday, which he can get to from my tweet at @grantshapps.[Official Report, 1 February 2021, Vol. 688, c. 5MC.]
More needs to be done to create jobs in decarbonised transport. I have three asks of the Secretary of State: introduce mandatory e10 fuels; provide funding for sustainable aviation fuel plants; and provide a bus strategy that copies the combined Scottish Government-EU initiative that saw the world’s first hydrogen double-decker buses in Aberdeen. The bus strategy needs to include orders for Scottish and UK manufacturers. Will he confirm dates and funding for these initiatives and in writing as well, please?
How could I possibly turn down such a wonderful invitation? I can tell my hon. Friend that I have already visited an information and advice site in Hopwood. It is a fantastic service, and there are thousands of hauliers visiting these sites up and down the country, including the Road King at Cannock. I would like to join him there, and hopefully he can tell me what the best breakfast is.
I am afraid that my question for the Minister might be slightly tougher to answer. As she knows, the new three-stop limit will be devastating for UK hauliers working with touring musicians or on events that involve multiple stops in EU countries. This is such an important sector for the UK, and it has already been hit so hard by covid. Can the Minister at least acknowledge today that the Government’s failure to seek an exemption during the negotiations was a massive own goal? Will the Government get back round the negotiating table and sort this out before the summer, when we all hope that the live music scene will be open once again for business?
On Saturday, I was delighted to announce £34 million to help to reopen the Northumberland rail line between Newcastle upon Tyne, Blyth and Ashington. Restoring many of the lines closed during the 1960s is an important part of this Government’s mission to level up the north when it comes to transport. I can announce today that, since the creation of the northern powerhouse in 2014, this Conservative Government have spent more than £20 billion on the region’s transport, delivering roads, rail, and cleaner and better transport, including 168 miles of rail electrification.
The Committee on Climate Change has reported that aviation accounted for 8% of UK emissions in 2019, before the pandemic stopped flights. I am pleased that the Government have finally indicated that they will bring forward a support package for aviation this autumn, but will this be conditional on action to tackle emissions in the climate crisis?
I am very disappointed that the Secretary of State would go so low as to repeat an untruth that was made by the Prime Minister yesterday, and a point of order has been submitted on that matter.
Nobody would deliberately say there was an untruth; somebody may not have had the right information, but it certainly would not be a deliberate mistruth.
Thank you, Mr Speaker. As we all know, 500 covid cases have been recorded at the DVLA offices in Swansea. There have also been worrying allegations that employees were coerced into turning off their track and trace apps or given warnings for taking time off sick, and those must be fully investigated. The evidence offered by the chief executive of the DVLA to the Transport Committee has, I am afraid, turned a crisis into a political test. Will the Transport Secretary explain why he ignored warnings about that issue, and why he essentially allowed a Government office to become a covid-19 superspreader? Will he confirm whether the chief executive of the DVLA still enjoys his full support?
Unbelievably, I have actually campaigned politically for my party in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency in the past; I say unbelievably because it is one of the safest Labour seats in the country. I actually think he represents a wonderful part of the world, with wonderful people, and he represents it well. I will sort out the meeting with the appropriate Minister on his behalf.
I will now come to the final question, from Greg Smith. I am pretty disappointed—topical questions are meant to be short and punchy. I say to everybody that, in the future, we have to get through them.
I now suspend the House for a few minutes to enable the necessary arrangements for the next business to be made.
(3 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberSince being elected, I have been working with Ministers on the reopening of the Skipton to Colne railway line and the potential for a freight terminal in Huncoat. It is an essential line, well worth the investment, that will connect east Lancashire to Yorkshire. Will my hon. Friend meet me to discuss the progression of the railway line and freight terminal, and will he look again at supporting an engineering study for the project?
Indeed. I thank my hon. Friend for her continued and tireless campaigning on this matter. Given that my constituency of Pendle will, as you have identified, Mr Speaker, be one of those that most benefit from the reopening of the Colne-Skipton line, I will recuse myself from commenting directly on the scheme, but I know she has met my hon. Friend the rail Minister, who continues to consider the proposals carefully.
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. We have had—not for the first time—a statement being offered during topical questions on a matter that should have been brought forward as a statement to allow proper scrutiny, in particular on the plan for Christmas. Although it nods to many proposals that Labour has put forward, we have not seen the detail and we have not been given the opportunity to scrutinise. May I have your advice, Mr Speaker? Is it not more appropriate for the Government to bring forward a statement that we can have a proper debate around?
I do not know whether anyone on the Government Front Bench would like to answer that.
On a point of order, Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. The hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon) will be pleased to hear that I am writing in considerable detail to all Members of the House. The letter should be released, but I did not want to release until I had made comments about it at the Dispatch Box.
We will leave it at that for today. In order to allow the safe exit of hon. Members participating in this item of business and the safe arrival of those participating in the next, I am suspending the House for three minutes.
(3 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRemaining in Scotland, we go to Douglas Chapman—he is not there. Let us go to the shadow Minister.
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I would like to say that my thoughts, and I am sure the thoughts of the whole House, are with the injured and all those affected by the recent bus accident in Winchester.
Local coach companies are much loved small businesses with the owner’s name and the town of origin proudly painted on the side of the coach. These are local small businesses that have served their communities through thick and thin. However, day trips and coach travel for football supporters have disappeared because of the coronavirus, and four in 10 of these much-loved local companies could go out of business this autumn, with the loss of 27,000 jobs. Will the Minister reassure the House that the Government will take urgent action to support these family-owned small businesses, and will he meet me and the coach operators as a matter of urgency?
The Government are investing £2 billion in active travel over the next five years. That is the biggest ever boost for cycling and walking and, as we heard in the previous question, it is welcomed widely across the House.
It is a pleasure to see Tracey asking this question. We miss you; we really do.
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I miss you all too.
Thanks to the Government’s active travel grants, Medway Council has managed to upgrade many of its cycling and walking routes, which is superb news for those at the Chatham end of my constituency. However, at the other end, part of the Aylesford towpath collapsed into the River Medway earlier this year and is now closed to the 6,000-plus users per month. Despite Kent County Council’s incredible efforts to find funds to repair the towpath, it still faces a significant shortfall. Could the Minister offer any guidance towards emergency central Government funding pots that would enable the reopening of that incredibly popular path for cyclists and walkers?
We are making active travel and public transport the natural first choice for journeys. We are providing £2.5 billion of support to accelerate the transition to zero-emission vehicles.
There is a lot to cover there, but I will try to make it brief. The hon. Gentleman is right about Stonehaven. I went to the scene of the tragedy—I was taken over in a helicopter—and it was like a Hornby train set had been thrown up in the air. Our thoughts and prayers go not only to the three who died, but to those who were injured, the emergency workers and the brave people who rescued others—our thoughts are with them all. The House will have noted that I issued the Network Rail interim report on Stonehaven a week or two back, which comes to some very important interim conclusions. I will update the House further with the full report shortly.
As for the ending of the emergency measures agreements, I hope the House will understand that it is not possible to conduct negotiations with nine different operating companies in public—I cannot do that from the Dispatch Box. As he knows, the EMAs come to an end shortly, so I will of course be coming back to the House. I would disbelieve everything that you read in the newspapers; I do not think I have read a single thing that relates to what is actually happening. I will return to the House in due course to update it on precisely what is happening, but I do not think that the hon. Gentleman can doubt our commitment to rail—the £3.5 billion we have put in so far, and indeed our support for HS2, which he mentions.
In order to allow the safe exit of hon. Members participating in this item of business and the safe arrival of those participating in the next, I am suspending the House for a few minutes.
(3 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberI pay tribute to the Chair of the Select Committee for his boundless work during this crisis in following up on all manner of transport issues, and aviation issues in particular. He is absolutely right that testing in all its senses is a large part of the solution to everything related, or at least it is an aid to everything related, to coronavirus, and it is extremely important that we get it right. We know that there is pressure on the testing system. Schools are going back and entire classes and years require testing, and the same goes for universities—Dido spoke about this last week. It means we need to ensure that we are prioritising that. We also know that it can be helpful for returning holidaymakers and other travellers. Day zero does not work at the airport, but testing later can work. That capacity will be an issue for the reasons NHS Test and Trace mentioned, and I can reassure my hon. Friend that I will return to the House with proposals, which are currently being worked on with the industry, for something that is both practical and workable and that people can rely on as much as the NHS test and trace system itself.
I call the Scottish National party spokesperson, Gavin Newlands, who has two minutes.
I thank the Secretary of State for his statement, which we also received a minute after he was due to deliver it.
We can see from all the recent data that coronavirus is currently spreading far more rapidly throughout the UK and many parts of Europe than in recent months. As a result the red list of countries from which travellers must quarantine on their return has been increasing steadily in recent weeks. Often the UK’s four Governments have come to the same conclusions on quarantining decisions at the same time. However, Scotland and Wales have occasionally made different decisions, as is their devolved right. Portugal was recently placed on the red list for Scotland and Wales, as it is now experiencing 23.2 cases per 100,000, but the Secretary of State accused the Scottish Government of creating confusion by placing Portugal on the quarantine list and of jumping the gun on Greece. Indeed, he doubled down on this in his statement today. The Scottish and Welsh First Ministers have not criticised him or his Government for their decisions on quarantine, so these are very unfortunate remarks that the Secretary of State should reflect on and perhaps apologise for.
The resurgence of coronavirus has shown that the trouble for the airline and tourism industries will persist for quite some time. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, what further support for the airline industry specifically can the Secretary of State commit to, and will he actually keep his promise to the industry of specific support? If there is a second wave of coronavirus that decimates international travel again, the industry could go back to square one in terms of the pandemic. Does he agree that that makes a strong case for the argument that targeted extensions of the furlough scheme are necessary?
Further to the point that the Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman), made, may I push the Secretary of State on the timeline for this aviation traveller quarantine testing programme? When will he bring that back to the House by? Finally, nobody travels more internationally than cabin crew and pilots, and recent weeks have seen many loyal British Airways cabin crew out of a job having refused to be fired and then rehired on slashed wages. Will the Secretary of Secretary of State apologise to those workers for failing to protect them?
This in-out, hokey cokey of on-off air bridges and quarantine comes without interruption. Passengers have landed at Heathrow and gone straight on to the Piccadilly line through Ealing and Acton, which is now a petri dish—we have an above-average virus rate—so can he please stop playing politics and give Transport for London the bail-out that it deserves at a time of national crisis to save the whole of London and my constituents from that second spike?
Yes, it is a concern that those stations are closed until 2021 and I would be very happy, with the Rail Minister, to have that meeting. It is extremely concerning and is, again, another sign of how all-encompassing the fight against this virus—it is not over yet—is. I will make sure that the meeting is set up.
In order to allow the safe exit of hon. Members participating in this item of business and the safe arrival of those participating in the next, I suspend the House for three minutes.
(4 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberI pay tribute to the work that my hon. Friend did when he was a Department for Transport Minister. Work is now under way on platform 0 at Leeds and is expected to be completed by early next year. It will enable Northern to operate services more reliably.
As I mentioned in an answer a few moments ago, we have already put billions of pounds into supporting this sector. The hon. Lady may be pleased to hear that there is something she can do, and that is to ask the Scottish Government to join with us to ensure that we can have air bridges in place nationwide as quickly as possible.
In order to allow the safe exit of hon. Members participating in this item of business and the safe arrival of those participating in the next, I am now suspending the House for three minutes.