Oral Answers to Questions

Luke Hall Excerpts

Thursday 8th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)]

7. What assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of trends in the number of bus services since 2019.

[Luke Hall (Thornbury and Yate) (Con)]

12. What assessment he has made of the impact of the £2 fare cap on the number of bus journeys since that cap was introduced.

[Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab)]

20. What assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of trends in the number of bus services since 2019.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Harper]

I am glad that the hon. Lady gives me an opportunity to remind the House that Transport North East has been awarded £19.5 million as part of round 2 of the levelling up fund, which delivers those buses. There are some appropriate checks that must take place, and I hope she will also welcome the fact that the North East and North of Tyne Combined Authorities got £117.8 million for their bus service improvement plans to deliver better bus services for her constituents.

[Luke Hall]

Rural bus services such as the 84, 85 and 622 services in south Gloucestershire are vital for residents to commute to work, get to school and attend health appointments, but they are under real pressure. South Gloucestershire Council has stepped in to provide a temporary fix for the 84 and 85 services, but will the Secretary of State urge the council and the West of England Mayor to work together to find a permanent solution for those services, using the improvement plan subsidies provided to them, so that residents in villages such as Charfield, Wickwar, Hawkesbury Upton, Rangeworthy and Tytherington are not cut off from having any bus services at all?

[Mr Harper]

As the Environment Secretary set out earlier this week, the Government are committed to unlocking opportunities in rural areas in particular, and local transport connectivity is crucial to that. The extra money we set out will help to protect services, and I can confirm that I would expect local councils and the West of England Mayor to work together to deliver those. I forgot to say in my previous answer to the hon. Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist) that I will of course make sure that the roads Minister meets her to talk about her specific question about her buses.

Train Services: South Gloucestershire

Luke Hall Excerpts

Wednesday 18th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Luke Hall (Thornbury and Yate) (Con)]

I am grateful to have secured this debate. The ability to move around for work, to travel to see friends and family or to have access to local services such as schools and hospitals is vital. For many people in South Gloucestershire, public transport is fundamental to the way we live our lives. That is why I have campaigned relentlessly to get South Gloucestershire moving and improve local transport infrastructure. We have had some fantastic successes in this respect: we opened the park and ride in Yate this year; we scrapped the Severn bridge tolls; we reopened the right-hand turn from Heron Way on to Kennedy Way; we reinstated bus services to Southmead Hospital, and so much more. However, there are some areas where progress simply has not been quick enough. I have called this debate to highlight the difficulties that South Gloucestershire residents continue to face with local transport, particularly over train services.

For a number of years, I have been campaigning to increase the frequency of train services from Yate to Bristol and Gloucester from hourly, as they are now, to every half hour. At the moment, these trains are often only two carriages long and at peak times they are already full, with passengers travelling between major urban centres such as Bristol, Yate and Gloucester. People living in Yate, Chipping Sodbury or any of the surrounding areas are often restricted from using train travel because the services just are not frequent enough to be viable or because of overcrowding on the services.

It is clear there is substantial local demand for this increase in frequency, with recently released figures showing passenger numbers have doubled on the Yate to Bristol line from 68,500 to more than 177,000 a year. South Gloucestershire generally is seeing high levels of housing growth, with more residents in the community, more cars on the road and more people moving and travelling for work. Yate itself has become a hub for inward investment around the west of England. It is a thriving place for people to live, work and raise a family. It is home to major employers, with staff travelling from right across the region to the town. It is vital that the transport infrastructure is in place, connecting residents and commuters to local jobs and allowing residents of the communities in and surrounding Yate to travel to South Gloucestershire and the surrounding areas. I would like to put on the record my thanks to Toby Savage, the leader of South Gloucestershire Council, who has done a great job in pushing for some of these extra services, supporting them through his good officers on the council, and putting his all into this campaign.

Increasing the frequency of these services from hourly to half hourly would make a huge difference to the community, and has widespread support from everyone involved. I conducted transport surveys across South Gloucestershire, where there is significant support for making this change. One of the barriers we have faced to increasing the frequency to half hourly is the need for track works to be carried out at the Bristol East junction at Bristol Temple Meads, as I raised frequently with the previous Secretary of State. I have been grateful for the support of the Department for Transport and the Minister’s predecessor, and for the £132 million plus that was invested to make that change happen and get the project to where it is today, allowing local decision makers to increase the frequency if they can. Increasing the frequency to half hourly is a key part of phase 2 of the MetroWest project, run by the West of England Combined Authority with the DfT, and is fundamental in connecting the areas surrounding Yate.

Network Rail and the local operator, Great Western Railway, have stated that they are keen to expand their timetable to accommodate these extra services. However, despite being such a critical part of the vision for the region, we have had serious delays in implementation. There were initially plans for half-hourly services to be delivered from December 2021—clearly, it is now early 2023 and they are still not in place.

In November, we had confirmation of the new timetables up to May, but we still do not have the half-hourly services. I have raised that time and again with Great Western Railway, which has explained that due to the backlog that built up during the pandemic and high sickness levels, it has not had the crew ready to operate the additional services that we all want to be delivered. Clearly, it has now been nearly a year since all covid measures expired in law, and even longer since the social distancing guidance expired, but the substantial training backlog is restricting the roll-out of services that are fundamental to accommodate growth across South Gloucestershire.

GWR has also confirmed the positive news that it has now submitted the timetable bid for the extra MetroWest services that it will run from Bristol to Gloucester, which includes the Yate station, in May 2023. That is currently with Network Rail’s timetable team as part of the validation process that it has to go through. The last thing that anyone wants now is a situation where, in May 2023 at the next set of timetable reviews, staffing levels are still not where they need to be so the service is stopped from being delivered again.

I have been offered assurances from GWR’s managing director, who has been clear that his team have identified the rolling stock required for the extra trains and that the training will be in place for May. There are also provisional plans for the service to be funded by the West of England Combined Authority for three years after it is operational, as part of an agreement with GWR.

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate and on his fantastic campaign to get South Gloucestershire moving. Does he agree that the proposed new Brabazon station on the Filton airfield site will help connectivity across South Gloucestershire by serving that new town as part of phase 2 of MetroWest? If we can work with the West of England Combined Authority and South Gloucestershire Council to get that expedited and built quickly, it will help residents across South Gloucestershire.

[Luke Hall]

I thank my hon. Friend for that clear point, on which I completely agree. Connecting areas such as Cribbs Causeway with Yate is also hugely beneficial for the many people in Yate and the surrounding area who work in the Filton and Bradley Stoke constituency and in the wider South Gloucestershire area. He is right to champion that and I completely support him in that quest.

The total proposed funding commitment for this project so far from the West of England Combined Authority is almost £3.9 million, which is hugely welcome. I understand that that is planned to be submitted to the combined authority committee and the joint committee on 27 January as part of the MetroWest phase 2 funding request. As we await the outcome of that, I thank all the local authority leaders across the west of England who have supported the new service in principle, and the West of England Metro Mayor Dan Norris for his support and helping us get to this stage in Yate.

I ask the Minister: what efforts are being made centrally to drive recruitment in the rail industry? Staffing shortages are beginning to hold up essential improvements to services such as the Yate half-hourly train service. My understanding is that the extra services have now also been submitted as part of GWR’s annual business plan to the DfT; I would be grateful for any update that he can provide on the process for signing that off at his end.

It is important that the rail industry should not be cutting costs at the expense of already approved timetable improvements in the south-west—many hon. Members feel strongly about that—so I would be grateful if the Minister could outline his thoughts on that. Will he meet me, Network Rail and GWR to discuss the support that the DfT can offer to ensure that the proposed half-hourly services can go ahead in May, which would mean that the Government could secure that vital return on their investment in the Bristol East junction?

Getting half-hourly service patterns in place is critical to enabling the opening of Charfield railway station, which is a separate project but is equally important for unlocking some of the roads and for connecting towns across South Gloucestershire with the wider region. It was opened in 1844 and was a vital hub prior to its closure in 1965. Plans are advanced to rebuild and reopen a new Charfield station in the heart of the village and there was a 12-week consultation that closed last year. It will be a hugely important development if it goes ahead; the application is currently with the local council. The importance of getting the Yate services must not be understated in terms of the wider impact on the surrounding railway network and helping us reduce congestion.

Yate is continuing to grow, but the current train services are too infrequent, with too few carriages. Delivering on the pledge to introduce half-hourly train services between Yate and Bristol and Gloucester is vital. It will improve access to local public transport, take cars off the road, cut journey times, and reduce emissions. The demand is there, and we have the local support; I hope the Minister will assure residents in south Gloucestershire that these plans are firmly back on track.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Huw Merriman)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate (Luke Hall) on securing this important debate on train services in South Gloucestershire and on his informative and impassioned speech. I recognise his hard work in campaigning to get South Gloucestershire moving and improve transport infrastructure for his constituents.

The Government fully recognise the vital role our railways play in connecting communities and supporting the economy. Taxpayers across the country contributed £31 billion to the railways over the course of the pandemic, demonstrating our commitment to their continued operation. The Government have acted with the biggest intervention in their history to ensure rail fare increases for 2023 are capped at 5.9%, some 6.4 percentage points lower than the retail prices index figure on which they are historically based. This is a fair balance between the passengers who use our trains and the taxpayers who help pay for them.

My hon. Friend talked in the latter part of his speech about the need to get more staffing and therefore more resilience into the railways. While the Government strongly support the recovery of the railway and the increase in passenger numbers, there remains an urgent need for continued modernisation and significant efficiency improvements to bear down on the cost of operating the railway. Part of this modernisation is to improve the speed and efficiency of staff recruitment, and we are exploring options to reduce the amount of time training takes in an innovative way using technology, while maintaining the exacting standards of safety currently in place on our railway.

The Rail Delivery Group’s latest offer to ASLEF—the drivers’ union—opens the door to a more diverse workforce by introducing part-time contracts and more flexible scheduling arrangements. It looks to address inefficient and arcane practices that have long since been phased out of modern workforces. I am sure my hon. Friend agrees that that would be a huge step forward for the rail industry and build upon the progress made in recent years.

Moving to my hon. Friend’s specific concerns, South Gloucestershire already benefits from a wide array of train services to areas including Gloucester, Cheltenham, Bristol, London, Cardiff, Portsmouth, Birmingham, Sheffield, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle, and the cities in Scotland—I could go on. Users of train services in South Gloucestershire have already benefited from the introduction of through train services between Cardiff and Penzance as part of the December 2021 timetable and the reintroduction of through services between Bristol and Manchester.

Now for the news my hon. Friend has been waiting for: I am happy to confirm that, subject to the provision of the necessary funding by the West of England Combined Authority, services between Bristol and Gloucester will be doubled to two trains per hour from the May 2023 timetable change as part of the wider MetroWest scheme. I thank my hon. Friend for helping make this happen and the West of England Combined Authority, which has worked in partnership with officials in my Department and the operator, Great Western Railway, to make this possible. GWR has identified all the rolling stock that it will need for the extra trains and is confident that it will have all the staff training completed in time to introduce the additional services from May. I hope that that provides the assurance my hon. Friend was looking for, but as always—and in answer to his request—I am happy to meet him to understand any further concerns, and to help him make this happen.

[Luke Hall]

I hugely welcome the announcement that the Minister has just made, confirming that, subject to agreements at the combined authority level, we are ready to go ahead with doubling services in May. It is fantastic news. I thank him for his work and support on that as well as for the reassurance that the announcement will have provided to the whole community.

[Huw Merriman]

My hon. Friend is kind. The thanks should go to him; I am sure that his constituents will recognise that. He is a dogged campaigner, and I know that he will ensure that my feet are held to the fire in delivering the service. I assure him that I will work with him to that end. I understand the disappointment that services were not introduced in May 2022. Staff training was severely disrupted during the pandemic, which is one of the reasons it has taken a while. I am also delighted to hear that South Gloucestershire Council is developing plans for a new railway station in Charfield to help people to travel more sustainably. It has recently submitted a planning application jointly with Network Rail. I wish all involved the best of luck with that proposal.

Another exciting potential development for residents of South Gloucestershire is the plan to develop the site of the old Filton airfield, as highlighted by my hon. Friend the Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Jack Lopresti), who is at the forefront of the campaign. That could unlock a significant volume of new housing and include two new stations at North Filton and Henbury, which would form part of the Henbury line. A new hourly train service would run between Bristol Temple Meads and Henbury calling at Ashley Down and North Filton and serve the new proposed YTL arena. I understand that the next stage is for a planning application to receive consent from South Gloucestershire Council to build the scheme. My officials stand ready to offer any necessary support to the scheme’s promoters.

Although this is not in South Gloucestershire, significant improvement work continues to be planned for Gloucester station. That will please my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham), who is not in his place but has had a word with me.

I conclude by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate once again on securing the debate and this additional service for his constituents. I hope that I have reassured him of our commitment to improving rail services to his constituency.

Question put and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Luke Hall Excerpts

Thursday 19th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

As the hon. Gentleman will know on the strength of his nearly 39 years of experience in the House, the effect of a point of order during exchanges on a question is to cause all further exchanges on it immediately to cease. Fortunately for the hon. Gentleman, he does not risk becoming hugely unpopular as a result of his attempted point of order, for the simple reason that no one else was standing and seeking to catch my eye—other than the hon. Gentleman with his rather bogus, albeit enjoyable, point of order.

[Luke Hall (Thornbury and Yate) (Con)]

13. What his policy is on rail reform.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Joseph Johnson)]

The Secretary of State’s strategic vision for rail was published in November 2017, and sets out our key reforms. Better teamwork between franchise operators and Network Rail will make the railway more responsive to customers’ needs and move power closer to local areas.

[Luke Hall]

South Gloucestershire Council is pushing ahead with its plans to deliver a vital half-hourly train link from Yate to Bristol. Will my hon. Friend explain how his rail policies will help to achieve that, and will he consider visiting Yate so that he can see at first hand how important the upgrade is to our local community?

[Joseph Johnson]

Improving connectivity around our great cities, including Bristol, is exactly the kind of scheme that our reforms are designed to deliver. The Government will continue to work closely with local partners to deliver the MetroWest scheme in the Bristol area. We are also examining the potential for the new MetroWest services to be extended beyond their currently planned termini.

Oral Answers to Questions

Luke Hall Excerpts

Thursday 19th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Paul Maynard]

I always get rather frustrated when people have had an answer but paid no attention to what I said—but there we go. The report from the National Audit Office was important. It contained a number of lessons, which we took on board when setting out the national smart ticketing programme. Technology is changing rapidly. We have to make sure that the schemes we put in place now meet what technology can do in a year’s time, or two or three years’ time. We will be moving fast with tickets, and tickets will be unbelievably advanced by the time the Labour party ever gets back into power.

[Luke Hall (Thornbury and Yate) (Con)]

9. What steps his Department is taking to reduce congestion on the strategic road network.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Jesse Norman)]

Tackling congestion, as you will know, Mr Speaker, is at the forefront of the Government’s plans to provide a modern strategic road network that supports our growing economy. The Government are investing in the largest programme of improvements on our national roads that we have seen for many decades, as the Secretary of State said—£15 billion between 2015 and 2021 alone. In addition to providing extra capacity on the busiest motorways by making them smart motorways, the Government will improve specific parts of the network where investment can tackle congestion, improve journeys and support economic growth.

[Luke Hall]

I thank the Minister for that answer, and I welcome the Government’s investment in a feasibility study into finally building junction 18A on the M4. However, one of the options under consideration is to build that new junction at Pucklechurch, which would devastate the local green belt and divide two extremely historic communities. With the decision expected early next year, residents are being left under a cloud of uncertainty, so will the Minister speak to Highways England to ensure that this undeliverable and unsupportable proposal is ruled out as early as possible?

[Jesse Norman]

I thank my hon. Friend for highlighting Highways England’s work to develop proposals that would improve access to the M4. The scheme will be vital to unlocking the potential for housing developments in that area. As he will know, the Secretary of State has seen the site for himself, and he and I are taking the issue very seriously. I will be discussing it, among other things, with Highways England when I see its chief executive next week.

Oral Answers to Questions

Luke Hall Excerpts

Thursday 13th July 2017 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Luke Hall (Thornbury and Yate) (Con)]

1. What steps he is taking to provide funding for large local major transport projects.

[Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)]

11. What steps he is taking to provide funding for large local major transport projects.

[The Secretary of State for Transport (Chris Grayling)]

Before I start, may I welcome the new members of the Labour Front-Bench team to their positions? I also congratulate the new Chair of the Select Committee on Transport, the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood), on her success in the election yesterday.

Under the large local majors programme, the Department has already given two schemes the go-ahead. We are currently looking at the case to approve up to four more and are funding development of a further 13 schemes that will be considered in the near future. Last week, we announced the creation of a major road network that will enable an even greater number of local road improvement projects to come forward. The details of that scheme will be consulted on later this year.

[Luke Hall]

The road to nowhere in Yate was built in the 1970s and was abandoned. It is now used as a film set. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the road should be reopened? What financial assistance is his Department making available for projects such as that, which would dramatically reduce congestion in Yate?

[Chris Grayling]

Having walked the road to nowhere with my hon. Friend, I rather agree that it would be better if it had genuine motorists on it, rather than ones in soap operas. I hope that he will continue to encourage his local enterprise partnership and others to bring forward proposals for that road. Through the growth fund, we provide support for schemes such as that. The scheme may also be eligible for consideration as part of the major road network, depending on the connectivity at either end, but I commend him for his work on the issue. I rather agree that it would be better if the road were open for motorists.

Great Western Line: Electrification

Luke Hall Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd November 2016 Westminster Hall

[Luke Hall (Thornbury and Yate) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Charlotte Leslie) on securing the debate. She made many of the points that I wished to make, but much more eloquently than I might ever have done. I join her in expressing disappointment at the decision to defer the four electrification projects along the great western route.

I will reiterate a couple of the points made by my hon. Friend, because that decision will have a direct impact on a number of my constituents in south Gloucestershire who travel from Yate, specifically, to Bristol Parkway and on to London. More passengers will continue to use the Bristol Parkway service as a result of the worsening congestion for many residents of south Gloucestershire.

I will also express some concerns about the knock-on effects of the plans to delay investment. I first seek reassurances from the Minister, as others have done, that the deferral of electrification of the Thames valley lines will not affect the cascading out of the Thames Turbo trains, the 165 and 166, to the west of England. They are essential to replace the trains that Great Western Railway has to return at the end of their leases. Failure to do so will result in a reduction of services and an increase in passenger overcrowding.

The chairman of our local West of England LEP called those trains

“essential to deliver the £100m MetroWest Phase 1 and 2 rail schemes”.

Phase 2 of the MetroWest scheme includes the plan to increase the frequency of services between Bristol and Yate from hourly to half-hourly, which will be hugely important to people in Yate, Coalpit Heath and surrounding areas. It has overwhelming support from people who want to see a reduction in overcrowding on the service, and would without doubt take more cars off already congested roads around Yate and Coalpit Heath. I will be grateful if the Minister clarifies that in his closing remarks.

I will also be grateful if the Minister clarifies the impact of the decision to delay on the local four-tracking project at Filton, which, too, is essential to deliver MetroWest phase 2. South Gloucestershire Council has already started some of the clearing work, so an early indication of any effect from the Minister will be extremely welcome.

Lastly, I call for reassurance that there are no plans to change the proposed four inter-city express services an hour between Bristol Temple Meads and London, two of which will pass through Bristol Parkway and connect directly with Yate services.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West for securing the debate, and I will welcome the Minister’s reassurances.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

We now come to the Front Benchers’ speeches. I want to call Charlotte Leslie again to sum up the debate no later than 5.43 pm, which means that the Front-Bench speakers have nine minutes each. Were the Opposition spokesman to take less than nine minutes, there will be more time for the Minister to speak and, potentially, for interventions, but we are in her hands. I call Pat Glass.

Avon Ring Road (M4 Link)

Luke Hall Excerpts

Tuesday 7th July 2015 Westminster Hall

[Luke Hall (Thornbury and Yate) (Con)]

Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak in this debate, Mr Williams. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore) for securing the debate, and I welcome the new Minister to his place.

Although my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood was four years old, I was not even born when the scheme was initially proposed. My constituency of Thornbury and Yate borders his constituency at precisely the point between junctions 18 and 19 of the M4 where the new junction is proposed. Since the building of the Emersons Green development, there has been a significant increase in the volume of traffic in the area. The A4174 between the site of the proposed junction and junction 19 of the M4 is particularly congested at peak times, which has a large knock-on effect on the villages in my constituency between the Emersons Green development and junction 18. There has been a steady increase in traffic movements through villages such as Pucklechurch and Hinton, where cars are using country lanes to access junction 18.

The local South Gloucestershire district councillor, Ben Stokes, has highlighted specific concerns about the junction of Cotswold Way and the A46, where traffic regularly tails back due to the volume of traffic on the A46. Motorists are becoming increasingly vulnerable as the pressure on junction 18 and the A46 increases. I also thank Councillor Steve Reade, who has pointed to the increasing volume of vehicle movements along the A420 through Wick in recent years. Residents of Kingswood, Bridgeyate and Oldland Common are exiting the M4 at junction 19 and travelling through Wick, rather than using the more congested junction 18.

My constituents have also raised concerns about the increasing difficulty of walking or cycling safely around the village of Pucklechurch. I fear that more pressure will push more people into cars, which will add to local concerns about air quality on the A420. The 2,500 homes planned at Lyde Green, which reaches from my hon. Friend’s constituency slightly into my own, will lead to a further increase in vehicle movements and more pressure on our villages’ already strained local infrastructure. Pucklechurch and Wick are small villages with a community atmosphere. They were never designed to be used as a daily bypass for commuters, nor were the roads that run through them.

Part of the solution is the construction of junction 18A, giving motorists a quick and effective route to the M4 and creating new capacity to absorb the traffic created by the new housing developments and growing businesses in the area. I know that a great number of my constituents make the daily commute to Bristol to work, and the current congestion means that a journey from Yate to Bristol always takes more than an hour. Although many commuters would still use the same stretch of road, the pressure on the ring road would be greatly relieved by the proposed junction.

I believe that the proposal will provide us with additional capacity for commerce to enter Bristol, which will connect new businesses, encourage trade in the region, help reduce unemployment and, crucially, create more skilled jobs in my constituency. I ask that the Government consider the proposal as a long-term investment in a thriving part of the country. As more families move into the area, we must encourage businesses to grow and to trade with each other locally and nationally.

In summary, the proposal will significantly reduce journey times into Bristol for many of my constituents, improve access to the M4 and reduce the traffic burden on the villages affected by the growing population. If we want our infrastructure to match our ambition, it should be seen as a vital part of the future of south Gloucestershire.