Oral Answers to Questions

Luke Pollard Excerpts

Thursday 30th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Paul Maynard]

Opposition Members really should not try to draw conclusions from one quarter’s statistics to underpin their own ideological agenda. The simple fact is that far more passengers have been using our rail networks than ever before. I believe that privatised railways have been a success. The alternative that the hon. Gentleman has proposed would ensure that passengers were always at the back of the queue whenever any decision was made by any ghastly future Labour Government.

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

More passengers are using the great western main line than ever before, but we need more investment in that line to ensure that journeys are fast and resilient. If our journeys are to continue to be slow, however, will the Minister commit himself to extending the GSM-R mobile phone trial that is taking place in Scotland and the north of England to Devon and Cornwall?

[Paul Maynard]

The hon. Gentleman is right to draw attention to growing demand for journeys to the south-west. I believe that Great Western is doing a very good job at running the franchise. We are very supportive of the work of the Peninsula Rail Task Force, and we are trying to pull together all the work that is being done to ensure that we have a clear idea of what more we can do. I will certainly consider the hon. Gentleman’s idea carefully.

Rail Update

Luke Pollard Excerpts

Wednesday 29th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

The prize for patience and perseverance goes to Luke Pollard.

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Fragmentation of the great western franchise risks locking in a poor deal for rail for the far south-west, so will the Secretary of State take this opportunity to match the commitment given by the shadow Secretary of State for Transport to fund the peninsula rail taskforce recommendations for faster journeys and a more resilient railway, and to ensure that we can unlock the investment we need for Plymouth, Devon and Cornwall?

[Chris Grayling]

I reiterate my point that this is a consultation, and I want views from all sides. We will make a change only if it is the right thing to do. We are not going to create a little fringe franchise just for Devon and Cornwall, cutting them off. If we make a change, it will be to have much more of a south-western franchise serving the region, providing good links locally.

The peninsula rail taskforce’s top recommendation was that we need to deal with the issue of the cliffs at Dawlish. The work on developing the solution to that is happening now, and that is critical to making sure that the route is resilient. That is my No. 1 rail priority for the south-west, and I give an absolute guarantee to the House that, as long as I am Transport Secretary and beyond, my party is committed to delivering a solution to prevent the real risk that those cliffs represent.

Rail Links: South-west England

Luke Pollard Excerpts

Tuesday 24th October 2017 Westminster Hall

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered improving rail links in south-west England.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans. I am proud to secure my first debate as an MP on the urgent need to improve the train line in the south-west of England. I am grateful for the cross-party support I have received ahead of the debate, and I will try to make my remarks as cross party as I can because I know the sentiments are shared by Labour Conservative Memberss.

I am proud to be a Janner—someone from Plymouth. Having been born there and as we live there, we all know that there is one thing in which we can instinctively believe: our train line is not good enough, and other regions get more money. As a region we have been given, and have accepted, a poor deal from Government for too long. Across nearly all areas of Government spending, the south-west, particularly the far south-west, receives below-average spend. In education, health, housing, road and rail the south-west lags at the bottom of the spending league tables. We need to change that, and we need to do it together. I am pleased that so many hon. Members from all parts of the House are here to debate the topic, and I hope the Minister will recognise that these are not just my concerns, nor those of my constituents or my party, but those of our region as a whole, presented on a cross-party basis.

I have three simple objectives that I encourage the Minister to take on board to help us in the south-west. We must realise the vision contained in the excellent recommendations of the peninsula rail taskforce, so we can have a railway to be proud of—an economic asset and not a liability. I encourage the Minister to help us to cut journey times from Plymouth to London from an average of three hours and 30 minutes to two hours and 15 minutes. Journey times are quicker to those regions lucky enough to have snazzy monikers such as northern powerhouse and midlands engine; I am afraid that the far south-west gets no such snazzy moniker, nor the spending that normally accompanies it. I encourage the Minister to help us to achieve our third objective: a railway that is resilient, with connectivity that will survive storms, and wi-fi and mobile connectivity enabling business to be done on the train.

With those objectives in mind, I have three simple asks of the Minister, his colleagues in the Department for Transport and those in the Treasury. First, will they look at how we can invest in quicker journeys and shorter journey times? The Minister will know that there is an opportunity to look at speeds on the Devon banks, the parts of the track between Plymouth and Exeter that are being repaired next year. While that work is going on, for a bargain price of £30 million, the track can be straightened, rails replaced and the speed limit lifted from 60 to 75 miles per hour. That would cut the journey from Plymouth to Exeter by three minutes; Great Western Railway trains would do it in just under an hour, and CrossCountry trains would do it in around 55 minutes. That would be a huge improvement on where we are now, and considering the billions being spent on High Speed 2 to cut journey times to the midlands for those in London, it is a bargain.

Secondly, I ask the Minister’s support for a pilot project in Devon and Cornwall, using Network Rail’s global system for mobile communications-railway, or GSM-R, masts for public mobile signal to power calls on trains and proper, full-distance wi-fi. I hope that my neighbour, the hon. Member for South West Devon (Mr Streeter), will pick up on that later. Finally, I ask the Minister to recognise the enormous amount of work put in by the peninsula rail taskforce, the councils, Network Rail, businesses and hon. Members, and to look again at his Department’s decision not to respond formally to the report. It is a first-class piece of work and deserves the benefit of a considered response from the Department.

Mr Evans, you will be aware that the far south-west is a beautiful part of the world, full of ingenious businesses, a superb tourism economy and the potential to deliver much more, but we need greater investment in transport. Plymouth has neither an airport nor a motorway—that ends in Exeter—and despite being the largest city on the south coast, larger than either Portsmouth or Southampton, our journey times to the capital are slower and our transport spend smaller. Post-Brexit Britain must not ignore the talent and potential of the regions. The far south-west is a region eager to deliver, but it requires strategic investment, especially in transport, to really motor.

The funding gap for transport in the south-west is real. The Treasury’s country and regional analysis publication shows that, in 2015-16, the total identified Government expenditure on transport in the south-west was £277 per head. In London, the figure was £973 per head. Spending in London is three and a half times that in the south-west, relative to population size. Spending in the south-west is the second lowest of all English regions, with only the east midlands being lower at £260 per head. These figures are greater when spending on transport infrastructure is factored in.

The Treasury’s figures on public expenditure on rail by year and region from 2015-16 state that the figure for London is £5.16 billion, while the south-west gets £357 million. That implies that, per head, people in the south-west are worth less than those in London. Let me be clear: people in the south-west are not worth less than those in the capital. As a member of the Select Committee on Transport, I asked the Secretary of State for Transport about these figures during our session last week. He encouraged me not to look at the figures. I am afraid that the figures are what I look at, because they tell a story about investment and political priority.

In 2014, as many hon. Members will remember, our poorly equipped train line suffered immensely during the UK storms, which literally washed away and left hanging parts of the track at Dawlish. A short distance down the track, the cliffs failed and fell on to the tracks, as has been happening for decades. The train line through Dawlish was closed for a number of months, costing the economy more than £1 billion. In the wake of the storms, the then Prime Minister David Cameron came to the south-west to visit Dawlish and see the damage for himself. In a press conference afterward, he said that

“money is no object...Whatever money is needed…will be spent. We will take whatever steps are necessary.”

Those are fine words, but the reality has often been quite different.

The problems were not just in 2014, when the precarious train line at Dawlish gave out. Each time there are storms, CrossCountry, which runs Voyager trains, must cancel the last leg of the journey from Scotland to Penzance at Exeter, because its trains short-circuit at Dawlish if they are hit by waves, blocking the track and requiring removal, effectively closing our rail line. It is not a historical injustice, but a regular occurrence. The recent Storm Brian meant that CrossCountry trains through Dawlish were cancelled yet again in the last week, raising the question whether anything has been learned in the three years since the floods. It is lucky that Great Western, which for the time being is still driving its so-called high-speed trains, can still go through Dawlish when the tracks are open. In no other part of the country would such a precarious train line or such a broken franchise commitment be tolerated by Ministers, so why are they tolerated in the south-west?

In the aftermath of those storms, the largely Conservative councils in the south-west, together with largely Conservative Members of Parliament, created the peninsula rail taskforce. It produced a series of excellent pieces of work, which my party supports, setting out a long-term programme of work to invest in our railways. I pay tribute to all those who contributed to and funded the PRTF reports and studies, and who continue to serve and contribute to that regional undertaking today.

[Sir Hugo Swire (East Devon) (Con)]

I fully understand that the hon. Gentleman is concentrating mainly on Dawlish and the Plymouth to London line. Will he also take the opportunity to support the existence of, and continuing investment in, branch lines such as the Avocet line, which plays a vital role between Exeter and Exmouth in my constituency?

[Luke Pollard]

I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that branch lines are important in the region. The PRTF report talks about not only investment in our main line, but creating wider Devon metro services and the importance of connecting not only Devon’s great cities, but its smaller towns as well.

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

While we are broadening the discussion a bit, does the hon. Gentleman agree that we should also look at new railway stations to help develop the whole network across the south-west? For example, in my constituency we are working on a railway station for Wellington. I am also working with my hon. Friend from across the border, the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), on a station at Cullompton. I know the Government have committed money for the new stations fund, and I welcome that, but I wonder whether the Minister might let us know for how long the fund will be accessible, and whether he might work with us to push the project forward when the time is right.

[Luke Pollard]

More new stations in our region can only be a good thing. Continued investment in repairing and renewing existing stations, such as the efforts being undertaken at Plymouth, is also much appreciated. The peninsula rail taskforce produced a fine set of reports. One year since hon. Members who are here today presented it to Ministers, there has still been no formal response. In answer to a written question that I tabled on 20 July, the Minister confirmed that the DFT would not formally respond to the PRTF’s report at all. That is disappointing, and I encourage the Minister to look at it again. It is a fine piece of work, setting out what signals, track, curves and junctions need upgrading to achieve quicker and more resilient journeys. It is a costed plan of some £9 billion in total, with £2.5 billion of immediate asks.

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

I very much agree with the hon. Gentleman that much more could be done to the track to get the trains faster. I want to get faster trains to Plymouth, but I also want to make sure they stop at Tiverton Parkway on the way. I very much back what my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow) said about a station in Cullompton as well as Wellington, and we must not forget the southern line from Waterloo to Exeter, which a great deal more could be done with.

[Luke Pollard]

The hon. Gentleman makes the point well.

In the general election, I was pleased that my party leader was so persuaded by the case for rail investment in the south-west that he backed spending £2.5 billion on the following immediate asks in the PRTF report: track straightening, signal upgrades, speed improvements and resilience at Dawlish in preparation for the Dawlish avoiding line. I fear I am getting a similar reputation to the Leader of the Opposition for liking trains. If Labour can do that, will the Minister look at spending that is as yet unallocated in control period 6 for funding the PRTF projects?

The Secretary of State recently announced £48 billion of maintenance and repair funding, with investment in infrastructure to follow in the so-called SoFA—statement of funds available—documents. My ask, which I am sure is that of other Members, is for the far south-west to gain its fair share of that funding. I do not believe voters or Members would accept or support yet more money going to other regions without the far south-west getting our fair share. I am sure that the irony is not lost on the Minister or members of his party present today that a plan put together largely by Tory councils and backed by Tory MPs is not yet being backed by a Conservative Government but is backed by the Labour Opposition. I am sure the Minister and all those with an eye on the region’s many marginal seats would like to address that.

We need a railway we can be proud of, and the autumn Budget is the Government’s chance to give us exactly that. Our rail travel should take two hours 15 minutes to London, not three and a half. We need to ensure we are investing in reducing the journey times at every opportunity. The PRTF’s “Speed to the West” study has identified an opportunity in the autumn Budget to allocate £30 million of new money and shave three minutes off the journey between Plymouth and Exeter. To complete the work, £600,000 is required for Network Rail to finalise the technical details and re-model the track plans. The work itself would cost £25 million to £30 million. That is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, because according to the chair of the PRTF, those tracks will not be repaired again for another 60 to 70 years. I encourage the Minister to support us in making the case to the Treasury and his own Department to spend that money.

I would like to take a moment to look at what transport infrastructure means for the wider south-west region as a whole. Last Friday at the Exeter Chiefs ground I joined Members and businesses from across the region for the south-west growth summit, where I made a pledge to back the south-west, as a number of Members did. The biggest single boost that could be delivered to our region’s economic performance is investment in our train line. The Minister and I are both big fans of modal shift—moving people from their cars on to trains. At present it is faster to drive between Plymouth and Exeter than it is to take a train. Will he help us to make modal shift possible, so that we can reverse those statistics?

Politics has changed, and new approaches are needed. Other regions of our country have seen the way that Opposition and Government MPs can join together to champion transport schemes in their region. I hope that that can be done in the far south-west. As a region, we need to be stronger, bolder and more relentless in delivering transport schemes and more passionate with Government to make sure we get the funding we deserve. If we continue to suffer from poor transport links, we risk losing jobs and missing the chance to protect and grow the economy in the south-west.

I would be grateful if the Minister could address in his concluding remarks the request for a pilot of using Network Rail’s mobile masts in Devon and Cornwall for train mobile signal, £30 million for a speed upgrade on the Devon banks and a proper response to the PRTF report. All three asks are in his hands. Our region awaits his decision, and I hope it is a good one.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Luke Pollard]

I thank the Minister for his reply. I am grateful to hon. Members on both sides of the House for expressing their passionate and sincere belief that we need a better deal for rail in the far south-west. It is clear from all the schemes that they mentioned that there is a good case for investment. Although I understand why the Minister was not able to give assurances, I imagine that we will all look carefully at the autumn Budget for the £600,000 and the £30 million. Will the Minister write to hon. Members about the global system for mobile trial?

[Paul Maynard]

indicated assent.

[Luke Pollard]

That is great. All members of the all-party group have a strong sense that the south-west deserves its fair share of funding. I anticipate that hon. Members on both sides of the House are gearing up to an intensified, relentless campaign. I am sure the Minister will be back to discuss this further in the future.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered improving rail links in south-west England.

Oral Answers to Questions

Luke Pollard Excerpts

Thursday 19th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

We welcome open-access applications. They have made a real difference to many towns and cities around the country. It is clear that open access should happen where there is capacity for it to take place, so that it fills in gaps and puts in competition. The Office of Rail and Road is very careful in judging when it can permit open access and when it cannot. It looks very carefully at every proposal, and we welcome them.

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

Further to the question from the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil) about the potential late tasking of lifeboats, will the Minister meet me, parliamentary colleagues and the coastguard to ensure that the launch protocols the coastguard uses are not adding undue delay in the tasking of lifeboats in emergencies?

Monarch Airlines

Luke Pollard Excerpts

Monday 9th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

Having spent five years working for the Association of British Travel Agents and lobbying for greater holiday protection, may I extend my thanks to the people working hard for that and ask the Secretary of State to extend it to travel agents and tour operators? What hit does he expect the Air Travel Trust fund to take as a result of Monarch’s collapse, and can he give an assurance that the ATOL protection contribution will not go up, which would mean holidaymakers having to pay more in future?

[Chris Grayling]

We will not know exactly how much until we have gone through the numbers in detail with the administrator. We do know that only a relatively small proportion of Monarch customers were ATOL protected, because the nature of the business was mostly flight-only. I will happily inform the House once we have gone through all the details, which will take a bit of time, but it will not be a substantial proportion of the total, because of the small proportion of customers who are covered.

Strategic Road Network: South West

Luke Pollard Excerpts

Wednesday 19th July 2017 Westminster Hall

[Jesse Norman]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. I will discuss the A303 and Stonehenge later in my speech.

The road investment strategy is the biggest upgrade to our strategic roads—our motorways and major A roads—in a generation. It will see the addition of more than 1,300 extra lane miles to our busiest roads. The schemes cover every region of England; in the two years since 2015, 12 major schemes have opened for traffic and 16 more have started construction.

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the Minister agree with me and with Conservative-run Plymouth City Council that it is time that we continued that investment in our strategic road network by extending the M5 from Exeter to the Tamar bridge?

[Jesse Norman]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that question. The answer is that we have a number of funds available and we look forward very much to the submission of bids, which will be given the full scrutiny that they deserve and merit.

Let me turn to the questions raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset. He started by referring to the A39, which I will touch on for a second. He will be aware that that is a local road, but as he also knows, the Government recently announced that from 2020, under the new roads fund that we have set up, which is entirely funded by vehicle excise duty—that is a tremendous innovation, or rather a move back to the future for our road network—we will segregate what we consider to be a major road network investment programme. I think that the A39 will be eligible to be funded under that programme. Once the consultation has been done and work is under way to programme that investment, my hon. Friend and local authorities will be absolutely welcome—indeed, they will be invited—to submit bids. I am aware of his strong feelings, rose-tinted spectacles or no, and those of my hon. Friend the Member for Wells (James Heappey) about the importance of dualling that road in both directions.

Overall, the Government are investing heavily in the road network in the south-west and have committed some £2 billion to major schemes through the road investment strategy. Later this year, we will announce the preferred route for the A303 Stonehenge tunnel, which is a very significant project in its own right, and for the A358 Taunton to Southfields and A303 Sparkford to Ilchester schemes. I understand that my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset has particular concerns—concerns that he expressed with considerable pungency—about the route that the A358 should take into Taunton.

Air Travel Organisers’ Licensing Bill

Luke Pollard Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 3rd July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a privilege to follow my comrade from Cornwall, the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double).

I am in an odd position in this debate as I have worked for the Association of British Travel Agents and Thomas Cook, and I now sit on the other side of the fence examining the ATOL regulations for which I made the argument several years ago. It is great to be back on this subject again.

I hoped that the first Bill we addressed in this Parliament would be about food banks or a new train line to the south-west, but ATOL reform is as good a place to start as any. I welcome the Bill. The updating of consumer protection for holidaymakers is long overdue and it comes on the back of several improvements in recent years in the way in which holidays have been sold and protected. I spent many years in Brussels working with colleagues of the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) and others on how we could strengthen the consumer protection for people buying holidays. As other hon. Members have said, the way in which holidays are sold has changed considerably in recent years. The travel industry operates under legislation that has not kept pace, in the UK or the EU, with the way in which travel is sold, partly because of the inventiveness and ingenuity of innovators and entrepreneurs in the travel industry. We are fortunate that the UK sector is second to none in how entrepreneurial it is.

My starting point for considering the Bill is to ask whether it will give certainty and confidence to consumers. The ATOL certificates introduced several years ago by the coalition Government were a step forward, but more can be done. In particular, people are often confused by the protection given when they buy a package, when they buy a flight-plus arrangement or when they buy separate arrangements sold at the same time with transferred data—a linked travel arrangement. The Bill does not say much about what secondary legislation will accompany it, and it will be essential that we get the detail right. The industry and consumers have been waiting for the Bill for some time and it is important that there is no further delay.

Having listened to the debate and having worked in the travel industry for a number of years, I think it is important that the House understands the clear distinction between the protection afforded by ATOL for package sales and those that can be afforded by buying decent holiday insurance, including SAFI—scheduled airline failure insurance. As the hon. Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) remarked, time is running out. We are six months away from legislation needing to be in place and 12 months away from full compliance. For an industry already selling holidays 12 to 18 months ahead, that creates a difficulty for consumers when it comes to understanding what protections will be in place for their holidays.

The package travel directive, which I have learned to love and hate at the same time, introduced many new concepts and requirements, particularly in relation to the notable systems changes required to facilitate additional information provisions within the directive. It gets even more complicated when one starts looking through it. Travel businesses need to have sufficient time to prepare for the effective date of 1 July and to plan sales beyond 2018. That preparation is already at an advanced stage. We need the Government to publish the regulations quickly so that they can be properly consulted on and so that industry can take the necessary steps to adapt to them. I am thinking particularly of small businesses that may be captured for the first time in the scope of the regulations.

Travel is a complex fast-paced industry full of fantastic people. These technical updates need to be fully understood and implemented over time for many different booking systems, both in UK companies and those that operate internationally. That is why the draft regulations cannot come a moment too soon. The Bill will help to clear up confusion about which holidays are protected and which are not. There was an interim stage of flight-pluses: buying a flight plus another element, such as holiday accommodation or car hire. Wrapping them all together is a positive step forward, but will the Minister look again at how linked travel arrangements are treated in the Bill? He mentioned an attempt to bring LTAs into the scope of the protection. I would like to see more detail on that, because how they are treated is especially important. If those transactions are not treated in the right way, they can fall outside the scope of the protections.

The people of Plymouth should not need to look into the small print of their contracts or their regulations to work out if they are protected. At the moment, there is still too much detail for people to understand whether they are fully protected. Given my newness in this House and the fact that this is the first Bill to be presented, will the Minister do me a favour and address a few things in his summing up? Will he clarify whether the implementation date for all bookings is from the point of sale or the point of departure? That is really important in terms of understanding whether holidays being sold now, which may be captured by the regulations after the implementation date, need to have retrospective protection added to them or whether that needs to be added subsequently. That could result in real confusion for consumers, so I would be grateful if the Minister cleared that up. I would also be grateful if the Minister reaffirmed that the protections afforded by not only the package travel regulations but the air passenger and other passenger rights regimes will be carried through when we leave the European Union.

I would like to spend a moment on the air travel trust fund. For those who have not spent time looking at how the ATTF operates, the fund provides back-up support in the event of a holiday company going down. It should ensure that there are sufficient resources not only to bring people stranded abroad home but to refund passengers who have not yet taken their holiday. Will the Minister provide an update on how it is going? Now there is £140 million in the fund and provisions in the Bill to create what I suspect are protected cells within the air travel trust fund—the Government have up to this point shied away from doing that—will he clarify how it will work in practice? Should a new entrance cell in the ATTF be exhausted by the failure of a company in that cell, will the ATTF for the remainder of the holiday industry need to top it up? If a company already covered goes bust and the fund is insufficient, will the ATOL protection contributions—the £2.50 we pay for protection—be transferred into that element of the ATTF to ensure that people are brought home? The ATTF has been exhausted in the past so these technical questions could help to provide reassurance for consumers to know that the fund will always be there.

Finally, on enforcement of the Bill, I note that the Civil Aviation Authority and Trading Standards are to take a larger role. The CAA has, for quite some time, done a good job of enforcing the ATOL regulations. I am, however, concerned about Trading Standards, which is already under a huge amount of pressure and stress to deliver the work it currently undertakes. This could further add to that difficulty and complexity.

It is great that so many people are familiarising themselves with the intricacies of ATOL protection. I hope that all right hon. and hon. Members do so during the passage of the Bill. I hope that the Bill will also be the start of a greater focus on tourism by Government. Outbound tourism, which is the type of tourism that ATOL protects, has fallen between a number of Government stools for far too long, with split responsibilities between the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, the Department for Transport and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. It sometimes seems that this is a hot potato that no Government Minister wants to touch. I am grateful that the Bill has been introduced, because it is time to consider a single regulator for the travel industry and whether there can be a clear Department responsible for bringing together all the elements of outbound protection for holidaymakers.

We are very lucky to have an outstanding outbound tourism sector. I notice that nearly all Members who have spoken to date have praised their local airport. Plymouth’s airport closed in 2010. I implore the Minister to look again at how measures can be put in place to help us to reopen our airport in Plymouth so that I can join the cohort of Members who have praised their own airport. At the moment, my airport is growing grass on the runway. I hope it can open again soon, so that holidaymakers in Plymouth can enjoy the same protections that ATOL affords holidaymakers leaving other airports.