Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Mark Harper and Natalie Elphicke(1 year, 9 months ago)
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Mrs Natalie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Mark Harper)
Following today’s £2.1-billion levelling-up fund announcement, I would like to briefly update the House about its transport aspect. Through your decision making, Mr Speaker, you have allowed Members the opportunity to range more widely. I am sure that Ministers at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities are grateful to you for the opportunity they will have to be at the Dispatch Box later today.
Nearly £650 million will be spent across 26 projects to help to create a transport system that is modern, efficient, and accessible to everyone across four nations. As we touched on in earlier questions, that includes more than 15 new electric buses in the north-east and the new metro line in the heart of Cardiff which, as Members know from our earlier exchanges, I will visit later today. Today’s announcement is a vote of confidence in the entire United Kingdom. As the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) said, I hope that it is rightly welcomed by both sides of the House.
Mrs Elphicke
When there are delays at the port of Dover, whether due to weather, strikes or the French, the impact on local jobs, businesses and residents is absolutely enormous. I welcome the £45-million levelling-up fund investment in our local campaign to keep Dover clear. I thank my right hon. Friend for that. Will he join me in thanking the Conservative leaders of Kent County Council and Dover District Council, and the excellent leadership at the port of Dover?
Mr Speaker
Order. This is topical questions. Other colleagues want to get in. Tell me who you do not want to get in, because that is who you are depriving.
Seafarers’ Wages Bill [Lords]
Debate between Mark Harper and Natalie Elphicke(1 year, 10 months ago)
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Mr Harper
The hon. Gentleman raises a very good point. The point of the Bill and the nine-point plan is to ensure that ferry operators that want to operate in a responsible way are not forced out of business or forced to drop their standards by unscrupulous operators. He also makes the point that services to Plymouth are incredibly important; speaking as a south-west Member of Parliament myself, I want to make sure that they can continue.
Mrs Natalie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
May I draw attention to the much better behaviour that we have seen from DFDS, which operates out of the port of Dover? On port-to-port agreements, will my right hon. Friend confirm that some of the issues that have been raised—including rosters, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency’s overview of the intensity of the Dover-Calais route, and matters outside the simple question of wages—can be better addressed within that framework between our two nations?
Mr Harper
My hon. Friend has put an enormous amount of work into the matter, following P&O’s behaviour. She is focused at all times on solving the issues on behalf of her constituents; I know that her conversations with my predecessors focused on fixing the problem in the long term and on supporting operators that want to raise standards in the sector. I thank her for all her work.
The charter that we are developing, in conjunction with the maritime industry and various social partners, will enhance the core employment protections available to seafarers. As part of that plan, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy will introduce a new statutory code of practice to address fire and rehire, which it will publish for consultation in due course. My Department is also taking steps to encourage more ships to operate under our flag and to improve the long-term working conditions of seafarers beyond pay protection, as my hon. Friend has just set out.
The measures in the Bill will help to ensure that employees working on vessels that make regular visits to UK ports can no longer be exploited by unscrupulous operators. Following the mass sacking earlier this year of P&O Ferries staff, some of whom had worked for the company for four decades, we promised to act. The Bill demonstrates that we are doing so. We are sending a message to every operator: if you want to serve UK ports on a regular basis, and if you want to carry passengers to and from our country, you must meet our high standards. I commend the Bill to the House.