Motorways: Litter

Margaret Ferrier Excerpts

Tuesday 25th April 2023 Westminster Hall

[Sir Mike Penning (Hemel Hempstead) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered litter on motorways.

On a very serious subject, hopefully we can also have some calming measures, if you know what I mean, Mr Hollobone. Other colleagues have indicated to me that they would join the debate this afternoon, so I wonder whether you could bear with them, Mr Hollobone, if some of them arrive a little later.

My constituency is boundaried by the M1, M25 and A41. The state of the rubbish on those motorways is an embarrassment to me as the constituency’s MP, and as an MP in general. I freely admit that the rubbish has probably been thrown out of the windows of cars—by passengers as well as drivers. Some of it comes off the back of refuse lorries that, inappropriately, do not have the correct tarpaulins to stop that happening.

Whatever the reason, the rubbish will start to disappear in the next few weeks. It is not going anywhere—it is just that the grass and weeds are growing, and they will cover it up. It is still not only a hindrance but a danger to our wildlife. Some of the areas where the motorways go are areas of outstanding natural beauty, on which wildlife very much rely. In my spare time, I love bird watching. It frightens me to look at some of the nests—especially at the end of the seasons, when we start clipping our hedgerows and other such things—and see what the birds think is safe to put into their nests.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)]

I thank the right hon. Member for securing this important debate. Anyone who knows me will know that littering is my biggest bugbear; it is infuriating. A key concern that highways workers have relayed to me is the health and safety risk that litter poses to them when they have to clean it up. Does he agree that the issue is not given enough consideration?

[Sir Mike Penning]

I think not only that it is not given enough consideration, but that it is a national disgrace. I specifically picked on motorways because of the legal responsibility Highways England, the Highways Agency or whatever it wants to call itself today—it has renamed itself several times since I was the Roads Minister. I do not know why it has spent so many thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money renaming itself. If the brand is decent, it should not be renamed. If the brand is bad, it should be renamed, and that seems to be exactly what Highways England or the Highways Agency—Highways something—has been doing. It has a legal responsibility for its network, which includes not just motorways but some A roads.

We should have better enforcement and use the technology that we have. If we can prosecute people for going two or three miles per hour over the speed limit—I am all for that; I was a Transport Minister—we can use the same cameras to prosecute people who throw litter. I am sure that, like me, colleagues have seen footage of people on the motorway driving down the road—there is the car, there is the numberplate, there is the face, there is the phone—and exactly the same technology can be used for people chucking litter out of the car.

Penalties almost certainly need to be stronger. Perhaps we should do something not dissimilar to what I did when I was the Minister and we brought in the driver awareness course. Fines and points were not working, but the evidence showed that drivers actually drive better and slower after they have done such a course.

At the end of the day, we have to do two things. We have to educate people through courses such as the driver awareness course, and we have to make sure the person or organisation responsible for these highways takes action. I picked the motorways because it is not like in our constituencies, where it could be a borough council, a district council, a county council or a unitary authority; there is a single body legally responsible for motorways and some A roads under section 89 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990. We have got to the ridiculous stage where individuals—I will talk about John Read and the Clean Up Britain campaign—are almost certain to use section 91 of the Act to take National Highways to court. We have the right under the Act to say, “You are not doing what you are supposed to be doing, which is to clear up the mess on our highways.”

When I applied for this debate, I was thrilled by not only by the excellent paper produced by the House of Commons Library, but by John Read of Clean Up Britain, Policy Exchange and the RAC Foundation. I also thank the Sunday Express for helping to highlight this issue last weekend. They have all come together to say, “What can we do to stop this blight, predominantly on the English countryside, getting worse and worse?”

As I said earlier, the litter will soon start to be covered over as the plants grow, but in the autumn, when the frost comes, there it will all be. What surprised me enormously was some of the commentary coming from National Highways. It produced a lengthy paper saying that it regularly checks the highways, and that more than 60% do not have any rubbish on them. All I can say is that they should have gone to Specsavers, or other places that are available, to check their eyesight when they drive back and forth to work on our highways. Litter is a danger not only to our wildlife—I have seen aluminium tins on the side of the road that have been there for so many years that they are starting to degrade, and plastic does not degrade in the same way—but to the staff clearing it up, as the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) said. There have to be road closures and it has to be done safely.

Interestingly, other countries seem to have solved this problem quite well. Any of us who go on holiday this summer to Germany, France or Spain will see that their highways are not covered in trash. Many people from this country will go to Florida, which has large five or six-lane roads. The hedges and grass are not covered in trash, and any litter is certainly not all chopped up when the grasscutters come along and it has not been picked up.

We have to ask ourselves why. Is it a cultural thing, or is it because the organisation that is legally responsible for clearing up rubbish is doing so? Frankly, if someone has broken the law and they get a community project, I cannot think of a better way of paying back into the community than being in a team that goes out and safely clears the rubbish from the sides of our roads. When I was in the Minister’s position, I was told that that was not possible because it was not safe. I used to be the Health and Safety Minister as well, at a different time, and it could be made safe. It is safe for workers to do it, and some of the stuff they have to pick up is truly horrible. We will not go into that in this debate, but Members can imagine what gets thrown out of car windows.

The question has to be, why is National Highways not taking this issue seriously? The organisation cannot be taking it seriously, because it has given contractors contracts but is not monitoring them. Following a freedom of information request to Mr John Read, National Highways came back and said:

“We don’t undertake audits of our contractors’ work for litter clearance.”

How do they know that 60% of the roads are clear if they are not monitoring their own contracts? It baffles me.

Under the Secretary of State, the Department for Transport has introduced key performance indicators for National Highways, but litter is not one of them; it is just part of something else and seen as not that important. I say to the Minister that it is important. How can we have a key performance indicator for the contract issued to National Highways by the Secretary of State that does not take into consideration the legal responsibility it has to the public? This is public money being spent on behalf of the public through the Secretary of State.

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[Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning) on securing this debate. I agree with almost everything he said.

Litter is something I have repeatedly raised concerns about with National Highways and, previously, Highways England. It is unacceptable for my office to have to repeatedly raise the issues of litter, lack of effective maintenance and general poor standards of work with National Highways. I am pleased that the Transport Committee, which I am a member of, recently wrote to Nick Harris, chief executive of National Highways, about some of these issues, particularly the nearly 40% of the strategic road network that either has widespread litter or is heavily affected by litter.

Many of my constituents in Stoke-on-Trent South frequently raise concerns with me about the disgraceful levels of litter and the bad impression that people get when visiting or travelling through our area on the strategic road network. One of my constituents said to me recently when I was out in the community that one of their relatives had visited from overseas and was completely shocked to see the standard of our highways and the scale of litter accumulating at the side of the road. As my right hon. Friend said, overseas we do not see the same scale of littering at the side of the highway.

Staffordshire is at the heart of the UK, with several key routes passing through it. We have seen major problems with litter and poor maintenance on this road network, and there are concerns with our motorway network, particularly on the M6 and around its junctions. The issue is not reserved to the motorway network. There are also major concerns about trunk roads, which are also under the auspices of National Highways. The A50 and A500 cut right through the middle of Stoke-on-Trent, and that has a significant impact on the surrounding communities. While these routes provide important strategic connectivity, they also cause many problems, including air pollution and litter.

The problems with litter have at times reached epic proportions, and I am extremely concerned about some of the wider maintenance standards, such as with vegetation management. The severe lack of grass cutting by National Highways has resulted in roundabouts and verges in the centre of Longton and Meir being totally neglected. Given that these roads cut through predominantly urban areas, standards of maintenance need to be different from those used in more sparsely populated areas. National Highways currently conducts only an annual cut, meaning verges become totally overgrown and completely filled with litter.

The lack of effective vegetation management has resulted in significant litter build-ups gathering in the overgrowth and attracting vermin. Following our calls, Stoke-on-Trent City Council has thankfully stepped in to cut some of these areas, including the most sensitive locations in town centres, which are still the responsibility of National Highways, but this really should not be happening. National Highways should take proper responsibility for the land that it owns.

[Margaret Ferrier]

On the point of vermin, littered food attracts wild animals such as mice, rats and foxes. Drawn so close to vehicles moving at speed, these animals have a higher risk of being killed. Many of them carry germs and disease, and it is not a nice job to have to clean up roadkill. Does the hon. Member share my concerns about the increased risk of animal deaths resulting from litter?

[Jack Brereton]

I agree that those are very serious concerns. Health and safety concerns were mentioned earlier regarding the impacts of the litter and the disease that could be carried by rats and other animals. That is a serious concern.

One of the things we have seen in our area because of the lack of effective maintenance is anti-social behaviour, with resultant massive build-ups of litter, including alcohol bottles and drug paraphernalia on National Highways land. As regards health and safety and the operatives who will have to remove some of that drug paraphernalia, that is extremely concerning. If there are syringes and things like that there, they will have to wear specialist safety equipment. I recognise that some projects have been undertaken to address some of the vegetation management in our area, but we need a far more comprehensive and proactive routine maintenance approach—and to a much higher standard than some of what we have experienced so far.

The situation is overly complicated, with differing responsibilities for different roads, and we heard earlier about some of the confusions in Bexley. That is repeated in a number of places around the country. Motorways are entirely the responsibility of National Highways. However, it is suggested that National Highways takes responsibility for litter collection on only some of its major A roads, even though the land is in its ownership. On many National Highways A roads, local authorities have to clear litter, so we see different standards across the country.

Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead, I commend many of the volunteers—particularly those in Stoke-on-Trent South, who have been doing an incredible job across the constituency in addressing some of the litter issues. However, they simply cannot do that on many highway locations, where safety is a serious concern and where we need National Highways or others to remove some of the litter.

National Highways has now started to form litter partnerships with local authorities, which is a positive step forward. Those partnerships are important given that it would be totally unsafe—impossible, in many cases—to undertake litter collections on parts of the National Highways network without road closures. There needs to be effective co-ordination for litter picking to take place when those roads are closed for wider maintenance.

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[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

First, I apologise to you, Mr Hollobone, for not giving advance notice of my intention to speak in the debate. I want to make a fairly short contribution. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning) on securing the debate and I apologise also to him for not being here for the very beginning of his speech, which I am sure was as outstanding as the latter part.

This is a genuinely serious issue. I cover the M25 and have the A2 in my constituency; nearby are the A20 and M20. There is no doubt that this is a growing problem; it is a worsening situation, which is very challenging to deal with. I am, frankly, sick to death of driving down the A2 and seeing this sea of litter along the side, particularly at junctions. The Darenth interchange is in my constituency, which is in an appalling state.

I am blessed in my constituency to have a large number of litter picker-type groups, which have done a fantastic job assisting the council and complementing the work that it does in picking up litter. The volunteer groups go out and collect litter. Some have been clearing litter from the junctions, but there is clearly a danger there—a significant risk.

When they contact National Highways, they are told not to go to the junctions—“Don’t go there; we advise against that because of the obvious dangers.” Some have been to those junctions and have taken away bags of rubbish, but there are all sorts of hazardous issues in doing that, not just traffic. So we are very reliant on National Highways taking the lead on this growing problem. It needs to show the lead. We are very reliant on it to clear up the litter.

Of course, National Highways do not drop the litter. People drop the litter, and I agree that that is the responsibility of those ignorant people who are throwing rubbish out of the window when they are driving along. I accept that sometimes it can be inadvertent, or negligent, but sometimes it is deliberate. Items are being thrown out of car windows and lorry windows, ensuring that the sides of the roads are an eyesore that we are all, unfortunately, getting used to seeing.

[Margaret Ferrier]

Does the hon. Member think that more frequent signage reminding motorists not to litter and the potential consequences of a fixed penalty notice would make any material difference to the levels of littering seen on the motorways? Would that be a worthwhile investment?

[Gareth Johnson]

I agree with the hon. Lady that that would make responsible people more aware of the issue, and they would act even more in a responsible manner. However, I do not feel it would have much of an impact on the ignorant people I spoke about earlier, who do not give a damn, frankly, about anybody else. It is someone else’s problem—“I am going to throw this rubbish out of the window and someone else is going to have to deal with it.” Unfortunately, those people are not going to change because of a sign.

The hon. Lady is absolutely right on the issue of fines. My right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead touched on this point in his speech. We now have camera technology that can give motorists fines for blocking box junctions, going through red traffic lights, speeding and so on. My hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr French) will know about the ultra-low emission zone cameras, as will the Minister, although we will leave that issue to one side at the moment.

The technology is able to pick up motorists doing almost anything it seems, apart from when they litter. I would certainly welcome a change in policy so that we use the camera technology that already exists to target those vehicles responsible for rubbish being deliberately thrown on to our motorway verges and to issue fixed penalty notices to the registered keeper of those vehicles. That would have some impact on the blight that is hitting our country, alongside our motorways, up and down the country. I would like to see more of that happening.

This is a big and growing problem in my constituency, and not just there, but around the whole of the country. It is not just Dartford or Hemel Hempstead or Bexley or Stoke-on-Trent that suffers; it is the whole country. We are seeing a lackadaisical attitude from National Highways, which should be taking the lead and upping its game. The current situation is not tenable.

Decarbonising Rural Transport

Margaret Ferrier Excerpts

Tuesday 7th March 2023 Westminster Hall

[Selaine Saxby]

My hon. Friend is entirely right that all of us in rural constituencies have plans that we need our councils to deliver to facilitate the decarbonisation of our rural transport network. The challenge we face is that, unfortunately, there is not always the funding to support those fantastic rural transport schemes, although I hope the Minister will reassure us on that point. I will come to some of my own suggestions for the bus network in Devon.

Active travel is an opportunity for some, but the distances involved in rural commuting by bike mean that it is not always an option for everyone. In my constituency of North Devon, 2.4% of work journeys are made by bike, which is a surprisingly high percentage for such a rural area, but realistically, active travel is unlikely to replace huge numbers of car journeys unless it is integrated into a wider transport solution.

I will return to the opportunities to tackle the issues of public transport and active travel, but we need to be realistic: rural Britain will continue to rely on its cars for the foreseeable future.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing the debate. Limited public transport options in rural communities mean that, as the hon. Lady says, many residents depend on their car for everything—getting to work, going to the doctor, seeing family and friends. Does she agree that any strategy to decarbonise rural transport needs to improve connectivity so that social isolation is not inadvertently increased?

[Selaine Saxby]

I agree entirely that there are so many more challenges around rural connectivity. If we are to continue to rely on our cars, we need to decarbonise them, but the roll-out of electric charging points in rural Britain lags behind that in towns, and when the distances we travel per day are so much greater, investing in an electric vehicle is a far harder decision to take.

Only 1.5% of North Devon residents have gone fully electric, compared with 2.1% nationally. I have a hybrid, as the majority of electric vehicles would not get me to Westminster each week, and I am not sure I would ever get to Exmoor in my constituency and back home as there are no charging points where I live. The nearest one is 5 miles away. To plug in at home, I would need to lay my own cable down 20 feet of path every evening, and I am not sure my schedule accommodates that.

While the Transport Minister is here, I want to highlight the appalling state of the roads in Devon. I am fully aware that we have the longest road network in the United Kingdom by 2,000 miles and that the council is working flat out to try to repair the proliferation of potholes that we have seen this winter. Not only has the weather contributed but we need to recognise that in rural Britain we have enormous farm vehicles on tiny lanes and we therefore create even more potholes, yet our council is not assigned long-term funding solutions to tackle them.

The short-term approach to funding, with inadequate rural weighting, makes the cost of repairing each pothole far higher. At this time, Devon is moving teams off scheduled roadworks as we cannot take on full-time highways teams due to the uncertainty around long-term funding. I hope that the Minister will be able to take that away and see what more can be done to address the entirely unacceptable state of our roads. If there were an Ofsted inspection of roads, I suspect we would go into special measures, yet the current funding mechanism contributes to that. The damage that potholes do to vehicles is also hugely expensive to motorists and the council, which is no doubt reimbursing a growing number of inconvenienced motorists with damaged tyres. And it deters people from switching to active travel solutions because of the potential risk of falling due to a pothole.

I spend a lot of time in this place talking about connectivity, often the communication kind, but our transport connections are vital. The lack of decarbonised public transport is impacting on decarbonising our travel.

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[Jim Shannon]

To be first on the list—my goodness. I am almost in a state of shock. Mr Davies, you are very kind. Thank you for giving me the chance to contribute. Others will contribute as well.

I thank the hon. Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) for leading today’s debate and setting the scene so well. She is right. The examples from her constituency are replicated across all the other constituencies represented here. Those hon. Members who have intervened so far have given an indication of the same issues.

As someone who represents a rural constituency, I have stated before that it is imperative that there is sustainable and economical transport for our constituents who live out in the countryside. I am very fortunate in that I have lived in the countryside all my life. I am very pleased to do so. I love the green fields; I do not like the concrete—that is no secret. That is why London does not really appeal to me as a place where I would want to live—there is not enough greenery around me to enjoy. But that is a choice that I have and that I have been able to make over the years.

We have seen the expansion of “green” transport to protect and preserve our atmosphere and environment, and we must continue to do this as time goes on. The hon. Lady outlined that. The issue must be addressed not only in England but UK-wide to ensure that we are consistent and equal in our efforts to decarbonise rural transport. I realise that the Minister is responsible only for England, but my comments will be on Northern Ireland, as they always are, and what we have done there.

Electric car charging points are few and far between. In rural areas, we have few or no charging points; they are always concentrated, as it is probably right that they should be, in towns—in my constituency, it is the towns of Newtownards and Comber. There are not enough charging points; I realise that. Central Government here have taken a decision to support the Northern Ireland Assembly and, with that process in mind, have allocated money to ensure that charging points are available across my constituency as well. There is an issue not with the number of charging points but with the time it takes to charge a car. The hon. Member for North Devon talked about needing 20 feet of cable to charge her car. Wherever there is a charging point, it is also important to have enough charging connections. I am not in any way influenced to buy an electric car, but my sons have done so; they are moving with the times, while their father may not be anxious to do that. My point is that we need charging points and enough connections. If it takes six hours to charge a car, as some people have indicated to me, then that tells me that we need more connections.

[Margaret Ferrier]

Transitioning the country from petrol to electric vehicles requires extensive work that needs to be done by 2030. The Government have already acknowledged that poor grid connectivity in rural areas could be a real problem when it comes to the charging infrastructure. Does the hon. Member agree that the current reliance on the private sector to decide on charge point locations and the lack of central policy around that could create a barrier to reaching the target?

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Lady for her wise and salient words. In Newtownards for example, people can charge their electric cars at the shopping centre, but if they want to go elsewhere in the town, they cannot charge their cars. Councils have a key role in prioritising charging points and, as the hon. Lady said, we must not depend on private companies, who may put charging points only in places that are advantageous to them. I am not saying such companies do not have a role, but the issue needs to be looked at more widely and in greater depth.

I am pleased to record a recent development by Wrightbus, whose headquarters are in Ballymena, in Northern Ireland, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley); indeed, my hon. Friend talked about this last week at Transport questions in the main Chamber. Wrightbus has secured a major order to supply 117 zero-emission buses across England, thanks to an investment of £25.3 million by the Government. That is an example of the many things that the Government are doing.

Operated by First Bus, the buses will be rolled out across Yorkshire, Norfolk, Portsmouth and Hampshire, and will enable passengers to enjoy greener, cleaner journeys. Therefore there is a strategy and we, in Northern Ireland, are very much part of that. The new buses will be manufactured by Wrightbus in Ballymena, supporting hundreds of new high-skilled jobs to help level up and grow the economy. Some of those workers live in my constituency of Strangford and travel to the Wrightbus headquarters for their work, so there is a spin-off in jobs, opportunity and economic advantage.

The new additional funding brings the vision of a net zero transport network one step closer to reality. The double-decker battery electric buses are 44% more efficient grid to wheel, saving energy costs and carbon. That is another example of how we are moving forward. The fact that the buses are manufactured in Ballymena means that the whole United Kingdom has the chance to benefit from that advantage, and hopefully other companies will be able to do the same.

The funding is an additional investment from the zero-emission buses regional area scheme, which was launched in 2021 to allow local transport authorities to bid for funding for zero-emission buses and supporting infrastructure. The Government have a policy that is working. Obviously it is a first stage, but I believe the policy will be able to go a lot further.

While it is a welcome and much-needed step, it goes back to my point that this needs to be a UK-wide measure. As the buses are manufactured in Northern Ireland, it would be fantastic for the Northern Ireland economy if some of the buses could be administered across the Province. We manufacture and sell the buses across the United Kingdom, but unfortunately we do not have much take-up back home, but I know Translink, our bus company, has purchased some.

The Secretary of State for Transport met Wrightbus representatives to discuss the success and stated that it would help level up transport across the country, yet the funding has been awarded only to places in England. While I respect the fact that infrastructure and transport are devolved matters, there needs to be greater communication between Westminster and the devolved Governments in relation to nationwide levelling up. I support the Government’s levelling-up policy. I think they have taken giant leaps to make levelling up happen, and this is such an example.

We need ideas for decarbonising public transport in more rural areas, where the population is more dispersed. As others have said, we do not have the continuity or regularity of buses that we should have in rural communities in order to incentivise people to leave their cars and use buses. We in the countryside—especially where I live in the Ards peninsula; indeed, in the whole of the Ards peninsula—depend on our cars, whether they are diesel, petrol or, in my son’s case, electric.

It will always be challenging and expensive to provide the decarbonisation of public transport, but many residents have brought to my attention that some rural buses routes are extremely limited anyway, and I want to put that on the record. There is hope that installing hydrogen buses in rural areas will further discourage people from using cars, which is certainly the intention. People with cars can jump in them and go—they do not have to wait for a bus to come along—but others are probably in a position where they can do that. The use of hydrogen buses and other approaches tend to focus on densely populated urban areas, as there may be a critical mass of people to support public transport services, so it is great to see some Government commitment and willingness to ensure that efforts are made to decarbonise our rural communities too.

I hope that the Minister can join me in congratulating Wrightbus, take the comments of Members from across the House into consideration, and ensure that there is equal opportunity for rural decarbonisation across the whole of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

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[Helen Morgan]

Yes. Secondly, if someone cannot access a car because they are young, are prevented from driving by their health or simply cannot afford to run one, they become stranded on the island of where they live. They cannot sign up to a college course, they cannot commit to a job outside the area and, in many cases, they cannot access what is becoming increasingly centralised healthcare provision without calling on endless favours from friends and family or using private cars instead.

The lack of a usable service not only means we emit far more greenhouse gases than we used to or, more accurately, than we need to, but there is a social and economic cost. For instance, the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital in Gobowen, near Oswestry in North Shropshire, is a top-class orthopaedic hospital with a dedicated veterans’ centre that takes patients from all over the country. We are extremely proud of it. Recently, however, the hospital is struggling to recruit and retain its staff and one of the factors in that is the lack of a bus service back into Oswestry for those working early or late shifts because those end-of-day services have been axed from the route. More widely, the issue is driving young people from our towns, increasing the proportion of elderly residents, and harming the economic vibrance of the high streets.

How can we reverse that in an area where the council is spending 85% of its budget on social care and where bus services have been so badly depleted that the remaining routes are uneconomic? At this point, I should also mention the importance of active travel. For an increasingly elderly population, in an area where rural roads are single carriageway with quite fast speeds, it is probably not sensible to suggest that those people should be cycling every day between the market towns, which are some distance away from each other.

[Margaret Ferrier]

The focus on active travel is sensible, because it has both an environmental and health benefit. However, there are many reasons that is not a suitable focus for rural communities when it comes to decarbonisation. Does the hon. Member share my concern that while the Government’s active travel strategy seems to acknowledge that, they have yet to set out any further specific guidance?

[Helen Morgan]

I think that is a fair point. Active travel has a role to play in towns, but it is concerning that we are not investing in public transport to move people around in rural areas. We need some clarity on that.

Going back to cycling and walking, many shorter journeys within towns can be made easier on a bike or on foot if there is a sensible network of crossings and dropped kerbs. In towns such as North Shropshire’s, which are largely medieval market towns, it would clearly be difficult to add a big network of cycle lanes into the narrow roads. During covid, councils were very quick to reimagine the way vehicles flowed around the town, making a pedestrian-friendly space workable at a fast pace. It would be good to see those councils being encouraged to continue to find practical ways of allowing people to move more easily around the centre of our towns. Removing the need for even a proportion of short car journeys, even if only on days when the weather is good, would surely have an impact on car emissions and—as the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) just pointed out—improves the health and wellbeing of anyone who decides to walk and cycle a little more.

Returning to the thorny issue of public transport, I am afraid that national intervention is probably needed. I welcome the restoring your railways scheme; North Shropshire has a great bid in for the Oswestry to Gobowen line, with an important stop at the hospital, and I take this opportunity to plug that bid. However, railway stations are not accessible for everyone. There is not really access for all where there is no step-free access to the railway station, which is another big problem in rural constituencies. At Whitchurch in my constituency, people cannot access the southbound platform, so despite the fact that there is actually a pretty good public transport service into Shrewsbury and beyond, on the main line to Crewe and Manchester, if someone has trouble with steps or has a lot of heavy baggage or a pushchair, they will turn again to their private car.

We are on the list for the Access for All plan. We have made our bid, which I hope will be successful, but it takes years and years to come through. If we are trying to get to net zero by 2050, the Access for All process really does need to be speeded up and, let’s face it, most places do not have a railway station or a railway line. Many of those stations have been axed from rural market towns and would be totally uneconomic to reinstate, particularly as those towns largely have housing estates over the former track, so we need to have a nationally led bus strategy that addresses people getting out of their cars and on to buses.

What would that look like? I am open-minded about demand-led travel and the technology that enables it, and it may well be part of the solution to improve connectivity and public transport in the more rural parts of Britain, and to integrate that with other parts of the network. We see elements of that with some of the voluntary schemes that are in place—the dial-a-ride, North Salop Wheelers-type schemes that help to get elderly and more vulnerable people out of their houses and into the towns on market days. However, those schemes are volunteer-run by nature, which is not necessarily sustainable. Demand-led travel might be part of the solution, but in areas where the population is sparse and the benefits of lift sharing and journey planning might be more limited, we still need a proper investigation into the relative benefits of demand-led travel and a good look at reliable, clock-face services for smaller market towns and the feed-in services from their surrounding villages.

We do, of course, need to talk about the types of buses—the fact that they do not all need to be huge, and that in future, they probably need to be electric or hydrogen-fuelled—but I will not elaborate on that point, because it has already been made. We should also accept that in small villages, there will always be a need for the private car, and we need to continue to incentivise the roll-out of electric cars. Public charging points are, therefore, really important. We are only just beginning to see the roll-out of public charging points in North Shropshire, but the capacity of the electricity infrastructure to cope with the additional demand on the rural grid is absolutely critical. I urge the Minister to consider not only the number of points, but the ability of the underlying energy infrastructure to support what is going to be an increasing electricity load, particularly in rural areas.

Overall, I support empowering local councils to develop their own public transport plans within the framework of a national strategy to find the solution that serves their area best. Empowering means funding and supporting those councils with the expertise they need to deliver a better future for rural transport, and funding them to tackle the additional rural distances is a critical factor. The rural economy, just like the climate, is approaching a tipping point, so we need a radical approach to public transport that can help tip both things in the right direction.

Oral Answers to Questions

Margaret Ferrier Excerpts

Thursday 2nd March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)]

T9. Will the Secretary of State or one of his Ministers meet me to discuss the increased restrictions on the movement of special types of general orders and abnormal loads, which are having a hugely detrimental effect on companies such as Cadzow Heavy Haulage in Blantyre?

[Mr Holden]

Yes.

Electric Vehicles: Infrastructure

Margaret Ferrier Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd February 2023 Westminster Hall

[Steve Brine]

I thank the chair of the all-party group for electric vehicles for that intervention. I hear what he says. Ultimately, it is a race to this prize—this technology—and once we fall behind, there is no point in reinventing it. I think it is quite an ambitious target. Certainly, given the pace that we are setting behind it, it is quite ambitious. If the Labour Front Benchers have a more ambitious target, I am sure we will hear it from the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi).

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)]

The distribution of charging points is quite unequal across the UK: London and Scotland have the highest provision. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that Ministers should urgently invest in charging points to ensure parity across the regions and therefore make EV ownership look more attractive and feasible to the public?

[Steve Brine]

I will come on to that. The hon. Lady’s point is absolutely accurate. I will make some progress, and then she will hear what I have to say about that.

There has been significant activity from local authorities in developing regional low-carbon transport strategies, and enabling charging infrastructure in some places. Hampshire County Council, which covers the whole of my patch, has implemented an EV charger framework. About £124,000 of Government funding has been awarded to my Winchester constituency towards that, and we are very grateful for that. However, to echo the hon. Lady’s point, that is not the case for all. Some local authorities have bid for funding from the Government while others have not, so there are disparities, as she says. The Government need to keep a beady eye on that trend to ensure that it does not continue.

Most of the installations and much of the infrastructure for EVs have been market-led; many individual charging networks and other businesses have chosen where to install charging points. As a Conservative MP, I believe that that has to be right—Government cannot and should not do everything—but we cannot overlook the fact that it has added to geographical disparities, for obvious reasons. It is not dissimilar to the high-speed broadband roll-out—it follows the money—but Government have a role here.

I looked at the statistics ahead of today’s debate. London is far ahead of other areas in the UK, with an average of 131 charging points per 100,000 people, but the next country or area has an average of only 69. We clearly need further intervention to tackle that inequality and help the rest of the UK to catch up with London as we make the desired policy move to EVs. My constituency has 78 charging points, and only 13 are rapid charging points. Winchester has 76 charging points per 100,000 people, which I admit is higher than most areas and in the top 100 in the UK. It has 1,270 registered EVs and a ratio of EVs to public charging points of 16:1. That needs to improve as the number of registered EVs increases; even a 16:1 ratio means a serious wait time to charge a vehicle if that cannot be done at home, and it cannot always be done at home for reasons I will come on to.

I appreciate that the number of charging points in an area can fluctuate for many reasons—faults, maintenance, other restrictions or just the market. Owners and operators can choose to temporarily or permanently decommission or replace devices with no controls in place. Do the Government need to act on that? If we expect everyone, as we do, to switch to an electric vehicle, people cannot be left without access to charging points.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I am delighted to speak in this debate; I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) on securing it. I speak as an unabashed enthusiast for the expansion of electric vehicles, but I want particularly to speak for those of my constituents for whom they are still an expensive aspiration. About 25% of my constituents do not have their own driveway and cannot charge easily.

As the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) said, it is good that the Government have committed to 300,000 public charging points by 2030. I like the scale of that ambition, as I do the commitment to 6,000 ultra-rapid charging points on our strategic road network by 2035. Those ultra-rapid charging points are generally able to charge a car in about 30 minutes. For most of us, a stop at a motorway service station—after we have answered the call of nature, got a coffee, and sorted out children and dogs and anything else that needs to be attended to—often takes about that time; if there a few minutes left over, we can always check a few emails while we wait. That charging time is excellent, and we need to push forward on it.

A couple of weeks ago, I was privileged to chair a meeting in the House of a number of significant electric vehicle charging point installers. They were quite enthusiastic. They had a number of problems, which I will speak about, but they said that there is no shortage of private capital looking to fund this work, which is excellent. Investment funds and wealth managers around the world have absolutely got the direction of travel. No one wants to be found holding stranded assets when the music stops, and this is absolutely the direction for the future. It can be monetised, and there is a lot of private money willing to flow into the sector if we can get the overall public policy architecture right. That is reasonably good news.

There is a case—perhaps this might be an early Budget submission by the Minister—for cutting VAT on public chargers, which is more expensive than on private chargers. That would help, and it would be a sensible policy intervention. I would also like to see a requirement for interoperability if charging points are going to receive public funds. I thought we had committed to that a while ago, but we are still not quite there yet. That would be a sensible move because, as the hon. Member for Bristol East said, sometimes it is difficult enough to access a charging point; if we then find that it is not in our network or not for our car, that just adds to the stress and anxiety. It does not help us get where we need to go.

[Margaret Ferrier]

In his last Budget statement, the Chancellor announced that, from 2025, EVs will no longer be exempt from vehicle excise duty, paying the lowest rate in the first year and the standard rate from the second year, and that they will lose their exemption from the expensive car supplement. As that will come some years before the complete phase-out of petrol cars, does the hon. Member think that it could impact the public’s willingness to prioritise purchasing an EV?

[Andrew Selous]

The hon. Lady makes a sensible point, in that we must clearly phase in these two moves together. There will be a serious loss of revenue to the Treasury as the number of electric vehicles increases, and we all have to be sensible about how we will replace that revenue, but we must do it in a way that encourages the transition that I think all of us here want to see. I thank the hon. Lady for making that point.

Before the debate, I contacted Stephen Mooring, the excellent head of sustainability at Central Bedfordshire Council, and he raised four points that I want to draw to the Minister’s attention. The first is connection costs for public charging points. It is not uncommon in central Bedfordshire for the grid to quote up to £45,000 for a connection. That is simply not economical for local authorities, so we must ensure that the grid is working with installers to make the continued roll-out of charging points economical.

An issue remains about people who do not have off-street parking. There is a lack of clarity about the position with cables running over pavements. To me, that is clearly a serious trip hazard. We do not want anyone to fall over and be injured, so that issue must be addressed. I think that there are some solutions—

Oral Answers to Questions

Margaret Ferrier Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Huw Merriman]

I thank my right hon. Friend for raising the important issue of ensuring that resource is available to check tickets on lines such as the Chase line. Ticketless travel is currently costing the network, and, indeed, the taxpayer nationally, an estimated £240 million per year. Back in December 2016, my right hon. Friend joined the then London Midland revenue protection team. She later told this House:

“The £20 penalty is insufficient to deter fare dodging.”—[Official Report, 12 January 2017; Vol. 447, c. 619.]

She went on to ask for a review of penalty fares so that they would become an effective deterrent. She has won that campaign, and I thank her for it.

There are nine new revenue protection security managers within the West Midlands Railway business. They are in training, ready to be deployed on the Chase line and throughout the midlands.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)]

In Scotland, peak time rail fares on specific routes are being disbanded in 2023 to ease commuting costs and encourage use of services. Have Ministers discussed rolling out a similar scheme with operators in England, as increased affordability could reduce fare evasion?

[Huw Merriman]

I have a real passion for reducing fare evasion. It is important that we learn from all parts of the United Kingdom how we can do this. At a time when we are experiencing issues with financing, it is vital that we do everything we can to ensure that passengers pay their way, so I am happy to meet the hon. Lady to share those ideas. If they are good ideas, I would like to see them rolled out.

Lifeboat Services: Search and Rescue

Margaret Ferrier Excerpts

Tuesday 10th January 2023 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Thank you, Mr Davies, for chairing the debate and for giving me a chance to participate. I thank the hon. Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) for setting the scene so well, and hon. Members for contributing to the debate.

Lifeboats and their services are imperative for safety in coastal communities, which is the key issue for me. The hon. Member for Torbay represents a coastal area that is similar to my constituency of Strangford, and we follow each other in debates more often than not—either him before me or me before him. The neighbouring constituency of North Down also has coastal areas with lifeboats, and people rely on the local stations.

It is great to be here to give them the praise they truly deserve and to thank them for their work and efforts.

Thousands of people along the coastline of Northern Ireland depend on the services of the RNLI for their protection and safety. During the summer, thousands of families and young people partake in coastal sports such as sailing, surfing and pier jumping. I used to do that myself off Ballywalter harbour, although that is not a very wise thing to do—always ensure the tide is in or there is big trouble. In addition, people go out in canoes and boats to fish, including from the fishing village of Portavogie. There are caravan parks at Millisle and my home village of Ballywalter, where I was brought up. They lie very close to where I live on the edge of Strangford lough. I am aware of the sheer number of water sports undertaken in this area.

The RNLI charity provides a 24-hour search and rescue service around the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland. Across the entire UK, there are 238 lifeboat stations, 46 of them in Northern Ireland. There are also 240 lifeguard units on beaches, which gives an idea of the magnitude of the issue. I found this figure incredible: since the RNLI was founded in 1824, its lifeboat crews have saved more than 142,700 lives. That is an enormous figure.

We are fortunate to have a lifeboat station in Portaferry in my constituency, and I visited the station just before the summer. Portaferry is one of seven RNLI lifeboat stations operating a lifeboat funded by viewers of the BBC TV programme “Blue Peter”. Some of us can cast our minds back to that, although others cannot go back that far. The station was established due to increased pleasure boating in Strangford lough, after Cloughey lifeboat station closed. Most recently, in November, the Portaferry lifeboat station came to the aid of two kayakers who got into difficulty near St Patrick’s rock in Strangford lough, and who faced weather conditions of wind force 8 to 10. Since the station opened in 1980, there have been 850 launches, rescuing 600 people and saving the lives of 100 people. That is just my lifeboat station in Portaferry. Thank you to all lifeboat crews, past and present, for their commitment.

Last year, I attended the parliamentary launch of the National Independent Lifeboat Association. I think the hon. Member for Torbay sponsored that event. It is important to pay thanks to those independent lifeguards and life-saving organisations who risk their lives in dangerous seas to help save others.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)]

Does the hon. Gentleman, like me, welcome the representation provided by the National Independent Lifeboat Association for smaller lifeboat operators, which might otherwise be overlooked?

[Jim Shannon]

I certainly do. We have all said how much we appreciate that. The hon. Member for Torbay said that in his introduction. My hon. Friend the Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) will recognise the independent ones in his contribution. I am thinking of the Foyle rescue team, about which we have spoken. We understand the commitment that those volunteers give. When I visited Portaferry before the summer, I was greatly impressed by their commitment and by the fact that they were there every time they were needed.

There are 46 independent lifeboat organisations that operate along the coastline and on inland waterways across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Those independent lifeboats are run primarily, if not entirely, by volunteers, and funded by local donations. The invaluable service they provide has saved the lives of so many and, in conjunction with the RNLI, they continue with those dedicated efforts day in and day out to save people. They are an asset to our communities. We would be completely lost without them, and many lives would sadly be lost as well. I am not the only who was moved by adverts on TV for RNLI showing a lady leave her house over Christmas to go and save people. We see how important these crews are when we recognise what they do.

To conclude, there are many ways in which we can support institutions such as the RNLI. It is possible to become a volunteer or a member, and even train to become assistance personnel. There are many things that people can do, including fundraising and donating money to ensure the RNLI staff have the best equipment available to fulfil their duties and be able to perform with the correct number of staff.

I sincerely thank the RNLI Portaferry team for all their dedication and work in my constituency. I also thank the lifeboat teams across Northern Ireland and the whole of the UK for the work they do, as our coastal communities would literally be lost without them. I live in a coastal community and understand what it means to have the RNLI, and I thank them very much.

Road Traffic Collisions Involving Cats

Margaret Ferrier Excerpts

Monday 9th January 2023 Westminster Hall

[Tonia Antoniazzi]

I thank the hon. Member for his very good contribution. Unfortunately, the 1988 Act was not put in place with this issue in mind, but I am going to talk about the microchipping issue that he has done significant work on.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)]

Following on from what the hon. Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti) said, the Government previously committed to bringing forward regulations to make cat microchipping compulsory before the end of last year. Many charities are concerned that they have not yet been laid; does the hon. Lady share those concerns?

[Tonia Antoniazzi]

I thank the hon. Member for her contribution. That is exactly what I am going to talk about. I agree that the microchipping legislation should be brought forward.

Under section 170 of the Road Traffic Act 1988, drivers are required to stop and report incidents of hitting a horse, cattle, ass, mule, sheep, pig, goat or dog, as mentioned by the hon. Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti). The Act reflects an understanding of animals as having a financial value attached to them as livestock or working animals. As such, cats are not covered. The petitioner, Olivia, and organisations including Battersea and the Blue Cross want this to change.

Because there is currently no legal requirement to report, we do not know how many cats are killed by vehicles. One needs only to have a quick search through their local area’s Facebook groups to know that. It is sadly very commonplace. Some 52% of respondents to the Petitions Committee’s survey for this debate said they had lost a cat as a result of a road traffic accident, with a further 40% suspecting that their cat had been killed but without any proof.

The reality is that not all drivers comply with the 1988 Act as it stands. For example, one particular road in my constituency has become notorious for cattle deaths at night, with the deceased animals being found by other drivers in lighter hours and reported then. Whether or not there is a place for cats in the Act, we know that it is not fully fit for purpose as it stands. How can the Government help to ensure that cat owners such as Olivia are not left in limbo when it comes to losing their beloved pet?

--- Later in debate ---

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

I welcome you to your place, Ms Harris. I am delighted to participate in this important debate, which arises from the e-petition relating to requirements to stop and report road traffic collisions involving cats. I thank the hon. Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) for opening the debate with a comprehensive overview of the situation. I also pay tribute to charities such as Cats Protection, Blue Cross and Battersea Dogs & Cats Home, which do so much to promote the wellbeing of animals and have provided us with some important briefings for the debate. I should declare that today I am using my Cats Protection pen, which I received at the charity’s event just before Christmas.

Everyone appreciates the importance of family pets, and we can all appreciate the distress and trauma when a family pet goes missing. Thankfully, many cats who wander off on their adventures soon return home safely when they are hungry enough. However, there are cat owners whose cats wander off and never see them again; sadly, on occasion, that is due to the cat being knocked down by a car and left on a roadside, or staggering away from the scene of an accident only to die before it can reach home. Owners are left distressed, often with no information, and, sadly, as those who have pets will understand, they feel as though a beloved family member has simply vanished. Those who own pets—as I once did; I owned the much-missed Kitty sand Misty, and hope to own cats again at some point—benefit from them in so many ways. That is why they are loved as members of our families. They provide huge comfort and health benefits, and also go a long way to combating loneliness; I speak as a vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on cats.

This petition is not party political, as has been shown by the consensus in this Chamber. It is about doing the right thing—a simple thing that will do so much for cat owners. It calls for cats to be accorded the same legal recognition as dogs, and for the same obligations to apply to collisions involving cats as to those involving dogs, under the Road Traffic Act 1988, which requires drivers to stop and report accidents involving a cat. It is not in any way a controversial request for our feline friends to be accorded parity in law with dogs when it comes to road collisions. We last debated the issue in 2019, and I honestly cannot understand why we are still debating it.

We all understand that for such a change in the law to really work, we would need joined-up thinking. We need to get to the compulsory microchipping of cats, so that their owners can be informed if they are involved in an accident. Compulsory microchipping of cats has not yet happened, but I remind the Minister—I am sure that I do not need to, but I will—that the Tory manifesto in 2019 committed to

“bring forward cat microchipping, giving cat owners peace of mind”.

That is a Tory policy that I and everybody else in this Chamber can support—and it is not often that the Minister will hear that! However, there has been no movement on that commitment, and that needs to change.

[Margaret Ferrier]

The Government’s stance has been that there is no need to legislate and create a requirement for local authorities to scan cats for microchips, because the majority already do so as best practice. Does she share my concern that that leaves policies at local authority level too open to change, for example where budgetary restrictions mean there are fewer staff available to perform the task?

[Patricia Gibson]

Yes. Many local authorities currently work very hard to screen cats for microchips, where possible; I will talk about that in more detail later. Local councils are under pressure, but it is important that there is leadership and support from a central Government level in both Scotland and across the UK. I will talk a wee bit later about how Cats Protection provides very important support in that regard.

The Scottish Government recommend that all cat owners should microchip their pets, so that they can be reunited with their owners if they are lost or injured, but they have not yet moved towards compulsory microchipping, which is a move I want to see. However, the Scottish Government are willing to examine and reflect on the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs call for evidence and the recent public consultation on the matter. I am confident that we will get to a place where cat microchipping will be a compulsory element of cat ownership, just as it is with dog ownership. Like many others, I am keen to reach that point as soon as possible, because the responsibility of owning a cat and the responsibility towards cat owners ought not to be different from the rights and benefits currently accorded to dogs and their owners.

In the UK Government’s action plan for animal welfare, which was published in May 2021, the commitment to cat microchipping was repeated. The plan said:

“We will introduce compulsory cat microchipping to ensure lost or stolen cats can be reunited with their owners as quickly as possible.”

But we are still in the dark as to what is happening with the implementation of that plan, just as we are—incidentally—with the Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill, which ought to legislate on very important aspects of animal welfare; undoubtedly, we will debate that Bill again soon. It matters, because it is all part of the same conversation about the small amendment required to the Road Traffic Act 1988.

The vast majority of cats in Scotland—around 70%—are microchipped, which demonstrates that most cat owners understand the benefits of doing so. About 29% are still not microchipped, which amounts to about 227,000 cats with no permanent form of identification; that is a problem.

We have heard from around the Chamber of the heartbreak of cat owners who either do not know what has happened to their cat, or who have to deal with their cat being struck by a car and finding that out—sometimes by accident. The sad reality is that we do not know how many cats are involved in road traffic accidents, because it is a not a legal requirement for a driver to report a collision with a cat, but Petplan believes that about 630 cats are run over every day. That is a huge amount. Some 35% of drivers admit to having hit a cat, and it is believed that between 7 million and 9 million cats are at risk every day of being involved in a road traffic accident, given the free-roaming nature of our feline friends.

If we are seeing an increasing number of cats being microchipped, and seeking to move to a point where all cats are microchipped as soon as possible, it is important that measures are in place so that those microchips can be scanned. I applaud the work of Cats Protection, which has worked with some local authorities to provide scanners to ensure that cats found on roads can be identified. Local authorities are also working hard to ensure that they are able to do this, as revealed by the Cats Protection freedom of information request, but there is still some way to go.

The call for the creation of best practice guidance for local councils will be supported by all responsible cat owners, because it will ensure that all cats found on our roads are scanned for a microchip and have their details logged, and that owners are informed so that—as the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Lia Nici) said—as heartbreaking as that news can be, they can find out what has become of their beloved pet.

Oral Answers to Questions

Margaret Ferrier Excerpts

Thursday 30th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Wendy Morton]

I know that my right hon. Friend has raised this matter before, and I will be happy to give him a written update on the Tisbury loop.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)]

6. What assessment he has made of the potential risks of legalising e-scooters.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Trudy Harrison)]

Safety is our priority, and we continue to assess ongoing e-scooter trials, international experience and further research to inform forthcoming legislation.

[Margaret Ferrier]

Vehicle standards remain a reserved issue, so any changes legislated for by the UK Government will impact on Scotland. What data have the Government gathered through trials on the impact that changes would have on people with sight loss, and how will Ministers share trial data with the Scottish Government, as no trials have taken place there yet?

[Trudy Harrison]

The hon. Member is absolutely correct. The 30 e-scooter trials have been hugely successful across England and will inform how we legislate, but let me assure her, and thank her for the opportunity to say, that we will share our data. We will publish it and the findings, and we will of course work with the Administrations across Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland.

International Women’s Day

Margaret Ferrier Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rosie Duffield (Canterbury) (Lab)]

This is the fifth International Women’s Day debate since I was elected in 2017, the fifth time that I have sat here to listen to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) read out the names of women killed in the last year, and the seventh time that she has read that horrific list compiled by our friend Karen Ingala Smith as part of her Counting Dead Women project. This year’s list is even longer than the last, but with several cases yet unsolved and many yet to go through court, that vile list and those grim statistics will sadly only increase.

It seems that those 125 men clearly have not been listening. They clearly did not hear as women around the world said, “Enough.” They did not see or hear those women at the vigils for Sarah and were not listening as we debated in this place and spoke about women’s rage and pain and what it is like to live in fear. We can add those men to the many whose victims were included in the work of artist Wilma Woolf, who visited Parliament this week. Her decorated dinner plates show women killed by men, listed by year and with a symbol to indicate how they met their deaths. Those symbols show a grim range of causes, from strangulation to being burnt, poisoned, drowned, shot, pushed from a balcony, decapitated and so on.

Wilma says of her work, made in conjunction with the Femicide Census, that it is designed to remember the women who have needlessly lost their lives and to highlight the institutionalised and systemic acceptance of this human rights abuse, which is often regarded as an inevitable part of men and women co-existing. The Femicide Census states that

“there is little suggestion that any intervention over the past ten years has had a significant impact or even any impact at all on the number of women being killed by men.”

This, then, is surely now an absolute emergency.

In the last couple of weeks alone, we have talked about this crisis of violence against women and girls—violence, rape, murder, whether at home or in a war zone. This violence affects 51% of the population—women who work, women who vote, women watching as we fail to do anything at all to reduce these horrific statistics.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)]

Does the hon. Member agree that in some walks of life, such as the armed forces, women face even greater barriers to receiving support for domestic violence and harassment, and that the Government should work to ensure that there is parity so that the right support is offered to all women?

[Rosie Duffield]

I thank the hon. Member for that point; I absolutely agree.

What do women have to do? Should we collectively go on strike, stand still, lay down, leave our workplaces and homes or stand in the road or the motorway, silently disengaging with the systems and society that refuse to see or hear our rage? This is not a political hot potato; it is about society. Our representatives here have to lead, demand change and show change. It is our duty. Men need to know that without question or exception, this will not be tolerated and that nothing at all awaits them if they hurt or kill women apart from a prison cell.

Families of victims visited us here this week, again, thanks to my heroic hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley. Their pain at the loss of their loved ones has been made worse by layers of injustice, keeping those wounds as raw as when they first heard that devastating news. These injustices would shock most people, such as the killer of their daughter, sister or mother still having control of her money or access to her children; or the fact that he raped her not being included in the charge sheet or factored into the sentencing decision. We have to do better, and this all has to change urgently through drastic action, changes to our courts, police and legal systems—whatever it takes. We should demand this on behalf of women in the UK, and I am demanding this as someone whose name could once have been read out by my hon. Friend.

Let us show that we are listening and making these lists shorter every year. I pray that next International Women’s Day, we do not have to be as angry, that we are celebrating change, hope and, above all, freedom for the incredibly brave women of Ukraine.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jane Hunt]

I apologise, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Since it was first observed in 1911, International Women’s Day has been a driving force for change. It is a day not only to empower women and celebrate their achievements but to raise awareness of equality issues and the very real injustices that women still face today. This year is no exception, with the theme of “Break the Bias” encouraging us all to call out gender bias, discrimination and stereotyping to ensure greater female participation and progression in our communities, our workplaces and our schools, colleges and universities.

As an MP, I am incredibly fortunate to be able to use my experiences as a woman in the workplace and as a mother, as well as the experiences of the thousands of women in my constituency, to help influence the change that is needed. Sadly, however, I am in a very small minority of women who have had this opportunity, being the 499th female of only 559 to have ever been sworn into the House of Commons—this is, of course, fewer than the number of MPs elected at any one election.

Thankfully, we are seeing the number of female MPs increase, with 220 women elected at the last election, which is the most ever. That said, it means that only 34% of MPs are women, despite the 2011 census finding that 51% of the population are women. There is clearly a lot more work still to do to ensure women are properly represented.

[Margaret Ferrier]

Does the hon. Lady agree that we all have a part to play, men included, in getting women elected? Former councillor Gordon Clark encouraged me to stand for election, and I will be forever grateful that he did. Men can use their platform and voice to further equality in these spaces, too.

[Jane Hunt]

I absolutely agree. Councillor Richard Shepherd of Charnwood Borough Council encouraged me to stand as a candidate for the Conservative party.

If we want to increase the number of women in public life generally, we must ensure we are leading from the front. I know this is of particular importance to the Government, the Opposition and the House, and I welcome that, over the last decade, there has been a real focus on removing the barriers faced by women who want to become an MP and enter government, most recently with the introduction of the Ministerial and other Maternity Allowances Act 2021, which will ensure that women are not forced to choose between becoming a mother and progressing in their career.

The importance of having more women in Parliament cannot be overstated; not only do women have a unique perspective on society and the workplace, but they have been responsible for, and instrumental in, some incredibly important pieces of legislation, such as those banning female genital mutilation, criminalising domestic violence and ensuring that women can build up pension entitlement in their own right. They also help to inspire the next generation of female politicians and women in public life. I was inspired to get into politics after hearing that our first female Prime Minister had taken office, causing me to investigate what that meant for our country and understanding that politics is a profession for women— I was 13 at the time.

As well as in Parliament, it is crucial that we have female representation in all walks of life, particularly in the workplace and the boardroom. I am delighted that progress has been made in that area, with the UK having the highest women in work index score in the G7 and being second in the international rankings for female board representation. However, there are still more barriers to remove if we are to create an environment where women can really progress, such as bias around pay and promotion, unacceptable workplace cultures, and issues with the ability to balance work and caring responsibilities, which all too often fall disproportionately on women. I know that the Government are committed to tackling those issues and I am fully supportive of the action we are already taking, for it is vital that we support women in the workplace.

I am talking about women such as the impressive managers and leaders I met last year at Tarmac, in my constituency, who were incredibly skilled experts, leading the way in their respective fields. Whether they are nurturing, shaping business or developing projects and goals, women have a great contribution to make and I urge us all to work together to ensure that women have the opportunity to put their stamp on local communities, businesses and the future of this country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Margaret Ferrier Excerpts

Thursday 16th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Trudy Harrison)]

Absolutely, and my hon. Friend is a fantastic champion for Rutland and Melton. I know that she has been instrumental in brokering this agreement. It means that after 40 years, the people of Melton are much closer to getting the bypass that they want. The Government are showing support for the bypass through the housing infrastructure fund and the local authorities major schemes fund, and we look forward to receiving the final business case, so that we can conclude the approval phase and allow construction to begin.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)]

The aviation sector has renewed its calls for Government support, as it remains one of the hardest-hit sectors and will continue to be one of the first industries impacted by travel rule changes—especially airports, which, as physical structures, have high overheads. Has the Secretary of State had any recent discussions with the Chancellor about what extra support could be offered?

[Grant Shapps]

I am pleased to report to the hon. Lady that we have indeed provided additional support—starting now—for those airport operators and ground handlers, who, in most cases, will have their business rates paid. I know that she sits independently, but as a Scottish Member of Parliament she might want to approach the Scottish Government. According to Scottish airports including Edinburgh airport, the approach taken in Scotland, where the Cabinet Secretary and Ministers in Scotland have refused to meet them, has been in “stark contrast” to the approach taken by the UK Government, where engagement has been “proactive”.