Rail Investment and Integrated Rail Plan

Matt Rodda Excerpts

Wednesday 8th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this important debate. I start by offering my wholehearted support to the shadow Transport Secretary, who has made an excellent contribution this afternoon, as have many other hon. Members across the House.

I feel deeply sorry for many communities across the midlands and the north of England, because they have clearly been badly let down by the Government. I know the rail Minister is a decent, hardworking Minister, and I am sure even he is disappointed with this rather thin offering—the way Nottinghamshire has been let down, the way the north-west of England has been let down, the way Bradford and Sheffield have been let down. They have all been badly let down by the Government, I am afraid, and indeed colleagues in London are about to be severely let down with the looming crisis in Transport for London, where the Government are clearly unable to do the decent thing and provide the right level of support to vital transport infrastructure in the capital.

All those things bode very badly for our country at a time when we need more investment and more economic growth. High-speed rail is clearly a driver of significant economic growth and regeneration for major cities and smaller towns, such as my Reading constituency, and offers huge advantages to communities across the country.

I draw the Minister’s attention to a number of points in my own area. In particular, I call for greater Government focus on electrification of the Great Western line to the west of Reading; at present the electric line stops at Newbury, which is clearly not far enough to the west. Indeed, the far south-west is not served by adequate rail infrastructure at this time. The electric line also stops in Cardiff, Wales, and Welsh colleagues have mentioned the serious flaws with that lack of investment in their country.

In addition, the north-south line that connects the south coast of England with the midlands and ultimately Manchester should be a priority for electrification. It is currently a narrow rail corridor with only one line going north and one going south. There are real issues there, but electrification offers greater efficiency, lighter rolling stock, much faster speeds on the railway and a more efficient railway all round. It requires more up-front investment, but it pays back great dividends in future. Many colleagues from Coventry and other midlands cities have mentioned that to me.

I realise time is limited, but I also draw the Minister’s attention to a number of other issues, particularly Reading Green Park station in the neighbouring seat of Reading West, which also serves my constituents who commute to work in the science park at Green Park on the west of Reading. We also need investment in other stations across Berkshire. I draw his attention to the need for the Western Rail Link, another crucial piece of rail infrastructure in the Thames valley that offers wider benefits to people from across the country. I appreciate that he is interested in the project, and I urge him to speak to local councils, myself and other MPs such as the shadow rail Minister on that point.

I realise time is pressing, but I would like to make a couple of other very brief points. Will the Minister also—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. I am sorry, but not with one second gone. I call Lee Anderson.

Rail Investment and Integrated Rail Plan

Matt Rodda Excerpts

Wednesday 8th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Louise Haigh]

This Government have been in power for 11 years. What have they done for the people of his constituency? He has described it as “utterly disappointing”.

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

I wholeheartedly support my hon. Friend in the points she makes about how this Government have let down the north, London and other parts of the country. The electrification programme is a prime example. Electrification stops before it even gets to most of south Wales. It stops in Newbury in my region. Does she agree that there should be far greater investment in this important part of modernising our railway?

[Louise Haigh]

I could not agree more with my hon. Friend.

Fundamentally the problem is that the integrated rail plan misunderstood the intention and benefits of High Speed 2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail. It was about freeing up fast, long-distance trains from the existing network and enabling more capacity for local services and rail freight. As a result, we have a set of proposals that will not deliver anything like what was promised for the north and the midlands.

This scaling back is a massive double whammy for our regions. The worst part is that the communities that will feel the brunt of years of broken promises, empty words and inaction are, at the same time, being squeezed the hardest by the Conservatives’ tax hikes and rising bills, while those with the broadest shoulders remain largely untouched. Those same working people will likely face a record increase in rail fares next year. They will be paying more than 50% more to get to work than a decade ago, relying on an unreliable and overcrowded system.

Tonight, Conservative MPs face a very simple choice. Will they stand by the pledge they made to their constituents at election time—a pledge that their Government repeated 60 times? Will they vote for the investment they were elected to office to deliver? With trust in politics so low, will they now do the right thing? This great rail betrayal will hit millions of people—their constituents—and leave the north and the midlands in the slow lane for decades to come. Tonight, Tory MPs can join with Labour and right this wrong. They have a chance to stand up for their communities. If they vote against this Opposition motion tonight, their electorate will know where they stand, will know they cannot be trusted and rightly will not forgive them.

Taxis and Private Hire Vehicles (Safeguarding and Road Safety) Bill

Matt Rodda Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 10th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate and support the hon. Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson) in his efforts to put this Bill into law. I should declare at the outset that I chair the all-party group on taxis. I speak with some passion on this issue, because some three and a half years ago, on another Friday morning, I moved a similar Bill, fully anticipating that with support from across the House and the industry, and with local authority and passenger group support, we would see the Bill progressing. I very much hope that he does better than I did in my efforts.

The intervening time has been tough for many people, and taxi and private hire drivers have had a particularly hard time. Many will have heard, as I have in my constituency, of the financial hardship people have faced, and of issues associated with vehicles being laid up and insurance-related problems. Although some help has been given, it has often been patchy. I have to say that with the Minister responsible being in the Lords, many will share my view that not enough has been done, with the impact on London’s black cab trade being a case in point. In June 2020, there were 18,553 licensed black cabs but by 31 October that had fallen to just over 15,000—there has been a 29% fall in the number of black cabs operating on London’s roads. At the start of June 2021 there were just 13,884, according to statistics from the Department for Transport—we are talking about 1,000 fewer licensed taxi drivers. So it has been a hard time for the industry, and I am grateful to the various groups, including Steve McNamara and the Licensed Taxi Drivers' Association, for all they have done in pressing for help, but this has not been enough.

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

This is an important Bill and I thank the hon. Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson) for his work on it. I also thank Ministers and colleagues on the Opposition Benches who have also inputted into this important legislation. I wish to comment briefly on my hon. Friend’s point about the effect on the taxi industry; these are important key workers who keep our country moving and offer a vital public service. I hope that the Government will look to provide some further support for the taxi industry in the future because of the pressure they have been under. I ask colleagues across the House to consider the needs of disabled people in the Bill. There is a need to do so and ensure a level playing field across the country. I hope the Bill is also an opportunity for that important work to take place.

[Daniel Zeichner]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. The taxi and private hire sector is often misunderstood. It plays a key role in our transport sector. Extraordinarily, it represents the largest number of people employed in transport. My hon. Friend is right that for so many people, particularly disabled people, taxis and private hire vehicles are a lifeline. The fact that they have been under such pressure is a cause for further action from Government.

Three and a half years is a long time to wait, and in the meantime I am grateful that Members across the House have pressed relentlessly for action. The hon. Member for Darlington has already praised the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) for his role when he was Minister. He established what was known as a task and finish group led by Professor Mohammed Abdel-Haq. His group achieved remarkable consensus, because there are competing views, particularly between taxi and private hire. It came back with 34 recommendations, a number of which include the very proposals we are discussing this morning.

There have also been repeated questions to Ministers and Westminster Hall debates. I remember when I was a member of the Transport Committee hearing a passionate appeal from a professor who feared we would see further incidents of the type that the hon. Member for Darlington has already referred to. He felt it was only a matter of time, without improvements in licensing, before we would see further tragedies. At Transport questions on Thursday morning, it sometimes felt like a permanent item on the agenda that Ministers would be pressed on this point. I am sure that many Members across the House will have heard over the past few months from a whole range of constituents about these issues, as well as from safety campaigners, disability organisations, trade unions and so on.

Technology has also produced huge challenges and changes for the sector in recent years. Something that has come across to me in my discussions with people going around the country is just how different the situations are in different parts of the country. I have already made reference to the black cab trade in London, and we hear about that, but there are different patterns in different towns, cities and market towns across the country. I thought that London and Cambridge were different in their approach, but in learning more about Liverpool, Brighton, Manchester, Rotherham and Wolverhampton, as have already been mentioned, and then looking at the market towns and rural areas, we see it is not a simple task to regulate all these different situations.

There are many, many things we need to tackle, and for those who want a quick history, I refer people to my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne), who had an excellent Adjournment debate a few years ago, where he traced the history of taxi legislation all the way back to the Victorian era. It is astonishing how much of the legislation still refers back and is based on so much of that. When I was talking to Department for Transport civil servants, they pointed me to the volume of legislation, which I am sure the Minister is intimately familiar with. It is lengthy, complicated and, frankly, it probably needs an overhaul, exactly as my hon. Friend the Member for Reading East (Matt Rodda) suggests. The world has changed and unfortunately the legislative situation has not changed to keep up, and it cannot be done in a private Member’s Bill, as the hon. Member for Darlington clearly acknowledged. There are so many things we need to do, but this is a small part related to passenger safety.

Future of the Coach Industry

Matt Rodda Excerpts

Thursday 10th December 2020 Westminster Hall

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Huq. I thank colleagues for taking part in the debate. It has been heartening to see how much interest there is in this key sector, especially at a time when Government support seems to be somewhat lacking. I extend a special thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) for his work in securing the debate and to all those who have facilitated it.

Coach firms, a huge number of which are small, family-owned businesses, are great contributors to local economies. They play a crucial and unfortunately somewhat overlooked role in our national transport network. In normal times, coaches and their drivers travel hundreds of thousands of miles every day, and for a huge variety of journeys. They take thousands of school children to school every day, who would otherwise have no reliable means of getting to their place of education. They make educational trips possible and they help sports teams to compete across the country. When our railway networks are delayed, they take passengers to their destination.

As has been said by a number of hon. Members, coaches play a crucial part in the tourism and cultural industries. In fact, as the experts at the Confederation of Passenger Transport have calculated, over 23 million people visit UK attractions every year by coach, generating nearly 10% of the tourism sector’s total contribution to the economy. That point was well made by a number of colleagues on the Government Benches. That is to say nothing of the economic boost provided by the tens of thousands of people employed by coach firms, the multiplier effect, the supply chains or the thousands of people who travel by coach because other forms of transport are not available to them.

In the very near term, the Christmas travel period could shine a further light on the importance of coaches. Labour has warned of the potential dangers posed by travel chaos as people use our road and rail networks over the festive period. Indeed, we have asked the Government to take special care at this time and to pay more attention to the potential difficulties during the pandemic.

It is clear that the coach sector is incredibly important in the immediate context and in the longer term for our economy as we transition away from the coronavirus pandemic and return to some form of normality. Sadly, it is equally clear that there has been a lack of adequate support over the last year, which has threatened the viability of many wonderful family firms. The furlough scheme, as we have heard, has often been the only source of support for many companies until recently, with industry experts estimating that 80% of coach companies were unable to access the coronavirus business interruption loan scheme or other business support over the summer.

The Government have argued, somewhat misguidedly, that schools returning has provided companies with business, but many firms run home-to-school journeys at a loss in the absence of other work, as we have heard. Many difficulties, as hon. Members have said, arise from coach financing. Companies have rightly been incentivised to purchase newer, more efficient vehicles, which are greener and better for the environment. Some firms have been able to negotiate payment holidays during the crisis, but they will soon come to an end. As my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Abena Oppong-Asare) said, in some cases, companies may be just months away from going out of business.

Despite that, there has been no sector-specific support for the coach industry, unlike other parts of the transport sector, such as bus, rail or light rail operators. I am afraid to say that industry experts estimate that four in 10 companies could go bust, which would mean the loss of 27,000 jobs across the country. Some firms have seen a drop in income of up to 90% this year, so it is not surprising that they are facing such financial difficulties.

Even in the context of good news about vaccines, it is clear that social distancing measures will continue for some months, which means that coach companies will be simply unable to operate at their normal capacity, as several hon. Members mentioned. Coach firms have historically been very responsible borrowers, and they have been profitable businesses. They simply need short-term help to tide them through the crisis.

I will refer to some of the comments made to me by companies. Acklams Coaches is a small business in Hull that my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy) introduced me to. It said:

“Until the pandemic we were a growing business and had invested in new environmentally friendly vehicles but to date our income has dropped by 70% with all our leisure work having stopped. We employ 110 staff, which has already reduced during the pandemic and we are now having to look to offer reduced hours, which means more staff are having to leave.”

Berrys Coaches in Taunton said:

“It feels like the coach industry has been the forgotten sector.”

Time and again in the debate, we have heard similar stories from hon. Members from across the country.

That is why we are calling on the Government to explain why they have excluded coach companies from the sector-specific rescue packages arranged for bus, rail and light rail. Indeed, what plans do the Minister and the Government have in place to tackle the looming financial crisis that has been eloquently talked about this afternoon by many hon. Members from both sides of the Chamber?

I urge the Minister to address three critical points in her closing remarks. First, the Government must publish a plan to tackle the looming financial crisis for coach firms to protect jobs and the viability of those wonderful family businesses in future. Secondly, I hope that she will explain why the Government have not committed to providing targeted support for coach companies, despite that being accessible to other parts of the economy. Thirdly, I hope that she will outline what steps the Government are willing to take to protect the tourism and cultural industries so that they can reopen safely as we transition out of the pandemic. The Government must now provide clarity and act with swiftness after months of inaction, otherwise we could face the loss of thousands of small businesses and thousands of jobs.

Oral Answers to Questions

Matt Rodda Excerpts

Thursday 3rd December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his relentless campaigning for things like the South Fylde loop. I, or my hon. Friend the Rail Minister, will be delighted to meet him to assist. We are putting in a lot of investment, including £10 million to tackle the Manchester bottleneck and, as the Minister with responsibility for the northern powerhouse, I intend to go much further.

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

We face a climate emergency and urgent action is clearly needed to tackle greenhouse gas emissions. That is why the Prime Minister promised to invest in 4,000 zero-emission buses. Given the seriousness of the issue and, indeed, the Prime Minister’s promise, why has the Government’s own spending review reduced the number of buses to which they are committed to just 500?

[Grant Shapps]

We are absolutely committed to introducing those 4,000 green buses. The hon. Gentleman will have noticed that, because of the pandemic, a large part of the industry has had to come to a standstill while the passenger numbers have not been there. The money in the spending review is a welcome start on that programme. It does not in any way remove the intention to produce all 4,000 buses. To expand, we have to start somewhere, and that is what the new money will do.

Transport for London: Funding

Matt Rodda Excerpts

Monday 30th November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. I thank the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) for opening the debate and all Members who have taken part in this evening’s discussions.

A number of excellent points have been made about the unfair way in which the Government are treating London. I want to draw the debate back to one particular aspect of that unfairness: the central issue of the risk to young people’s travel. The issue of funding for free transport for under-18s is incredibly important, demonstrated not least by the number of signatories to the petition that led to the debate—more than 170,000 people, the last time it was checked. That is a truly incredible outpouring of support for the “Don’t Zap the Zip” campaign, which has taken social media by storm over the past few months. Londoners past and present have shared their experiences of the scheme, and it is clear that thousands of young people rely on affordable travel in a way that is hard to imagine in some other parts of the country.

Although the scheme demonstrably helps all young Londoners, the reality is that the proposal to suspend free travel for under-18s will hit the poorest hardest. That is especially true in the context of the coronavirus crisis, as many family finances are very stretched. We should all think deeply about that.

Londoners have far less access to a car than most people living elsewhere in the country. Indeed, the most deprived households in London are almost five times less likely to own a car than the least deprived, meaning that affordable public transport plays an especially important part in levelling the playing field and helping all Londoners to get around. A YouGov survey bears that out: 74% of children with a zip card use it to get to school or college, while a further 26% of those surveyed, and more than 36% from low-income families, were concerned that ending the scheme would restrict their access to school, apprenticeship and training options. I am sure we all agree that access to those important services for young people’s development should not be restricted in any way; indeed, it should be encouraged. Furthermore, the same survey found that 33% of children would feel less safe if they were priced out of bus travel, while 38% worried about being late, which is also important.

Free travel is not only about ensuring that children can get to school or training on time and safely; more than half of young people who use the scheme would have relied on it to visit cultural and other activities in central London, and to visit friends and family—all important parts of our shared life in the capital city and around the country. Indeed, if we want families and friends to see one another and reduce social isolation, which is obviously increasingly important during the pandemic and our recovery from it, we should encourage young people to be able to get around in the coming months, as the restrictions are eased. We should also not forget the truly important objective of promoting the use of public transport to reduce air pollution and carbon dioxide emissions, as several Members quite rightly said with reference to their constituencies. Surely, in that context alone, this is a very important scheme.

I have major concerns that Government decisions around TfL funding, including regarding the scheme and for London more generally, are being politicised in a rather sad and unfortunate way, as we have heard. I urge the Minister—she is a thoughtful Minister—to have a word with some of her colleagues about reconsidering their approach, particularly as we recover from the pandemic, when we should be paying tribute to transport workers and their contribution, and about trying to take this whole issue a little bit more seriously.

We should also reconsider—I hope that the Minister will take this back to her colleagues—the effect of the spending review on Londoners. So far as I can see, the review did very little for London at a time when the capital city is under huge pressure. It reconfirmed the Government’s thin commitment to funding Crossrail. I should declare something of an interest, to put it mildly, as a Member for one of those seats that will be a terminus for Crossrail. There is huge potential for Crossrail to be an engine not only for the London economy, but across southern England and out as far away as Oxford, which could benefit the western side, and Kent and Essex as well. I am sure that your constituency would benefit from it, Sir David. I hope that the Minister will look at this again.

Sadly, the Government have been taking the Crossrail project down to the wire, with the investment authority dangerously close to running out of resources. The Mayor has put forward London’s case, but the Treasury does not appear to have listened. Indeed, the Mayor had to fight tooth and nail for weeks against Government Ministers who wished to impose punishing, damaging conditions, as we have heard. I hope that the Government will stop playing politics with London during the pandemic and its aftermath, and that Ministers will think again about their overall approach.

I make three requests to the Minister—I hope that she will take them on board and bring them to the attention of her colleagues. First, the Government should recognise the importance of free travel to under-18s, particularly in supporting education and training, but also on a whole range of fronts—the social and family benefits are significant as well. Secondly, I hope that she will concede that promoting the use of public transport in major cities can play a huge part in tackling environmental problems, as we heard earlier. Finally, as we have all said before, I hope that she will urge her colleagues to rethink their over-political approach to some of these issues and work together for the benefit of London.

Draft Road Vehicles and Non-Road Mobile Machinery (Type-Approval) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020 Draft New Heavy Duty Vehicles (Carbon Dioxide Emission Performance Standards) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020 Draft Road Vehicle Carbon Dioxide Emission Performance Standards (Cars and Vans) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020

Matt Rodda Excerpts

Thursday 12th November 2020 General Committees

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

I thank you, Ms Rees, and the Minister. Brexit and climate change are two serious issues that we must deal with properly. The statutory instruments cut across both issues and so require scrutiny, especially in the light of approaching deadlines, political pressure and the demands of dealing with the coronavirus pandemic. As the Government move to enshrine EU regulations in UK law, I take the opportunity to emphasise the need to maintain truly and equally ambitious CO₂ reduction targets and high vehicle safety standards.

The first instrument deals with vehicle standards. There is undoubtedly a need to introduce new regulations to allow vehicles and engines to be produced in Northern Ireland to be sold in Britain. None the less, I emphasise that it is important for the Government to remain vigilant about several related safety issues. For example, the Health and Safety Executive provides official advice to deal with the extra precautions needed when working at height on vehicles. As the instrument eliminates the 4-metre height limit on vehicles, I ask the Minister to commit to monitoring the situation and to take all the necessary steps to keep those who work with large vehicles safe at all times. Will she write to me about the steps that the Department may take?

[Rachel Maclean]

indicated assent.

[Matt Rodda]

I note that the Minister is nodding. I am grateful and I look forward to hearing from her.

I have more serious concerns about the second and third instruments that relate to important aspects of the Government’s environmental policy and, I believe, clearly show that Ministers are seeking to water down their commitment to tackling the climate emergency. The Department for Transport’s explanatory memorandums on the two instruments on carbon dioxide emission performance standards say that the Government aim to introduce standards to UK law that are

“at least as ambitious as under the current EU regime.”

Independent analysis by the Transport & Environment think-tank questions that claim, however, and points out that, although the headline aims are the same, flaws in the current proposals reduce their effectiveness. I will address two specific examples; I hope that hon. Members will forgive me for their somewhat technical nature.

First, the regulations use the average mass of cars in the EU to set targets for future UK carbon dioxide emissions, rather than the average mass of cars in the UK. That amounts to watering down the regulations and setting lower targets for the UK, because UK cars are on average heavier. Secondly, the regulations allow manufacturers to use an additional 3.5 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometre of super-credits as an additional allowance for producing CO₂ for some battery and plug-in hybrid vehicles that, in many cases, also have internal combustion engines.

According to experts, replacing EU regulations with the current proposals will mean that a fifth fewer electric vehicles are sold in the UK. That could mean that, in 2030, only one third of cars sold are electric. The Committee will have noted the Government’s interest in enhancing the number of electric vehicles.

That is a significant change in policy that will hamper the UK’s ability to meet vital targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Last year, the Government declared a climate emergency and promised to take climate change much more seriously. If the instruments are passed in this watered-down form, however, it will clearly signal that the Government’s actions do not match their words.

As a constructive Opposition, we call for the Government to withdraw the instruments and introduce secondary legislation that transposes current EU regulations into UK law instead. If the Government commit to that, we will do all we can to expedite that process and allow the necessary legislation to be passed before it is needed.

Reducing the carbon dioxide produced by road transport should be the central priority for any Government. We cannot reduce our efforts to tackle the climate emergency and we will therefore vote against these regulations.

Safety and Littering: A34 and A420

Matt Rodda Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[David Johnston (Wantage) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to have secured my first Adjournment debate. As some Members will know already, one of my major transport requests is the reopening of Grove station, which was one of the stations cut in the Beeching cuts. My constituents have wanted it to be reopened for more than 40 years now. It would better connect the people of Grove, where a lot more housing is due to go, it would get people off the roads I am about to talk about, and of course it would improve our environment. I have got my bid in to the Restoring Your Railway fund, and I have everything crossed for hopeful news at some point in the future.

However, that is not my constituency’s only transport challenge. In fact, we have two issues on two roads, which add up to one big problem for the people in my constituency. What I will talk about is the responsibility partly of Government, partly of Highways England and partly of the councils, both county and district.

I will begin with the A420. The A420 has two sections, and I make no apology for being most concerned with the section that goes through my constituency, from down near Shrivenham and Watchfield, up through the Coxwells, round Faringdon, across through Littleworth, Buckland and Kingston Bagpuize, and up through Fyfield and Tubney, which I will come back to in a moment.

The road is known locally—it has been for a couple of decades now—as a “road to hell” or “Hell’s Drive”. The fundamental problem is that it is very unsafe. It is supposed to be a local road going through a predominantly rural area, but it is used for commercial traffic between Oxford and Swindon, with a lot of heavy goods vehicles, which I will come back to, and as a shortcut between the M4 and the M40. All that adds up to too much traffic, and too much traffic of the wrong kind—traffic that is too heavy for what was built as a local road.

To put the safety issues in context, because that traffic adds up to a lot of accidents, we have had 12 fatal accidents in the three years to 2019, compared with five fatal accidents in the three years before that, so the problem has been getting worse. Overall, there have been 1,057 accidents in the past six years, which averages at nearly one accident every other day. The important thing about that statistic is that it is only for accidents that were reported to the police because someone was injured; it does not account for all the other accidents we know happen that simply involve vehicle damage. With those, I think that figure would be a lot higher. Of course, the safety issues are predominantly for the vehicles on the roads, but they are also an issue for cyclists and those on foot, because I stress that this is supposed to be a local road. All the way along the road, people live near it and need to be able to cross it.

One good example of the problem is when we get to the villages of Fyfield and Tubney, which the A420 goes through, Fyfield on one side and Tubney on the other. In order to do anything other than simply stay in their houses all day every day, people need to be able to cross the road. The numbers may be small, but the problem affects 100% of the community. I hope that this brings home to the House how extraordinary the situation is with the road: because it is so difficult to cross—because of the amount of traffic, the speeding that goes on and the HGVs that go down it all day long, from morning till night—constituents are known to get a bus down the A420 to cross at one of the few crossings, and then get the bus back, because they cannot make a simple journey straight across the road.

None of our constituents should have to live like that, and we must again make the A420 a local road that is suitable for the people who live in that community. That means a number of things. It means a proper bus service with safe stops along the route, as well as safe pathways for those who are on foot or on their bike. We need traffic light crossings and pedestrian crossings along the route—it is really quite a long route. We need better signage that diverts HGVs, which should not really be on the road anyway, away from it and reduces the speed on it, and importantly, that will have to be enforced.

Of course, that should be the responsibility of Oxfordshire County Council, but the council says that it does not have the money to make the improvements, even though it recognises that they are needed. I would therefore like the Minister to respond to the question of how we might remedy that situation, because it has gone on for far too long and my constituents should not have to deal with it.

Let me turn to the A34 which, again, is in two sections. Again, I make no apologies for being most concerned about the section that goes through my constituency, which in this case starts in the south and goes past Chilton, Harwell, Didcot, Steventon, Milton and Drayton as it as it heads north. I know that many Members of this House have some experience of the A34. In the past six years we have had 50 fatal crashes on this road, and 2,593 crashes overall, which is more than one every single day. Again, those figures are only for crashes that involve people being injured; they are not the figures for just damage to cars. On Thursday, I was told that I had secured this Adjournment debate; there was a crash on the A34 on the Tuesday beforehand and on the Friday the day after—and I am just talking about the section that is in Oxfordshire.

When it comes to the A34, the problem is much better documented. Highways England has recommended a number of safety improvements. As some of those improvements have been made, I ask the Minister when we can expect the other improvements, because my constituents try to avoid this road because of the safety issues. I should say that that question is separate from that of improving connectivity across the region. The safety issues have been going on for some time, but there is a separate question about how to improve connections for people going across the region.

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way on this important issue, which is of great seriousness to residents across the Thames valley—it is good to see that the hon. Member for Newbury (Laura Farris) is also in her place.

I fully support the hon. Gentleman’s concerns about safety on the road, which affects people living in the Reading area as well. Does he agree that another potential safety issue is that traffic can come off the A34 at Didcot, travel through Didcot and past Wallingford, and then take the A4074 into the northern part of Reading and use Reading as a shortcut to get on to the M4? We have serious concerns about traffic taking that shortcut route, which affects the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, the constituency of the hon. Member for Henley (John Howell) and the Reading East constituency.

[David Johnston]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, for which I thank him. We have all sorts of issues in Didcot and Wallingford exactly as he describes regarding those roads being used in that way. I am talking about certain roads; were this a Westminster Hall debate, we could probably talk for an hour and a half about the issues of traffic and shortcuts and what people are trying to do to get around roads that do not work effectively.

We then come to litter. I have had reports and complaints about litter on both roads. I have had complaints about the A420, but it is fair to say that I get many more about the A34. The litter itself is a safety issue. People drop all sorts—cars, lorries and road workers are dropping plastic bags, plastic bottles, tyres and a whole range of other things, which are unsightly and unsafe for constituents, and not good for the environment either.

When it comes to litter, a couple of odd situations need to be remedied. One is that one company is responsible for mowing the verges along the A34 and another is responsible for picking up the litter. That strikes me as pretty inefficient. Understandably, Highways England will not allow the A34 to be closed during the day because of how much traffic goes along it, which means that the company has to try to pick the litter at night, which is, of course, much more difficult. The question on littering, which I pose to the Minister and which a number of constituents posed to me, is: why can Highways England not be responsible for clearing litter on the A34? It has a number of other responsibilities to do with highways, and it would make sense—given that this growing problem is a regular cause of complaint from my constituents—for it to be responsible for this, given that it makes it difficult to clear the litter another way.

In conclusion, these two roads present huge challenges for my constituents—noise problems, tremors from HGV lorries making their houses vibrate, the littering problems that I described and, more than anything, safety issues, with crash after crash and near miss after near miss. Everybody in the House should agree that it is one thing for someone to avoid a road because there might be traffic and they fear they will be delayed, but it is an entirely different thing to avoid a road because they think there will be accidents and they fear they might be injured. In the case of both roads, my constituents have dealt with that fear for far too long.

Oral Answers to Questions

Matt Rodda Excerpts

Thursday 17th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Remaining in Scotland, we go to Douglas Chapman—he is not there. Let us go to the shadow Minister.

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I would like to say that my thoughts, and I am sure the thoughts of the whole House, are with the injured and all those affected by the recent bus accident in Winchester.

Local coach companies are much loved small businesses with the owner’s name and the town of origin proudly painted on the side of the coach. These are local small businesses that have served their communities through thick and thin. However, day trips and coach travel for football supporters have disappeared because of the coronavirus, and four in 10 of these much-loved local companies could go out of business this autumn, with the loss of 27,000 jobs. Will the Minister reassure the House that the Government will take urgent action to support these family-owned small businesses, and will he meet me and the coach operators as a matter of urgency?

[Robert Courts]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising that very important point. I know that that is an area in which he has a particular interest. I would be very glad to meet him and representatives of the sector to look at what may be done.

Draft Carriage of Dangerous Goods and Use of Transportable Pressure Equipment (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020

Matt Rodda Excerpts

Tuesday 15th September 2020 General Committees

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for setting out the Government’s position on this important draft statutory instrument.

Clearly, safety must come first when goods such as petrol, chemicals and other dangerous materials are transported. Indeed, many tankers and other vehicles pass through densely populated areas. This happens in my constituency, in roads and rail links through Reading, Woodley and Caversham, and in many other parts of this country.

Drivers may also be at risk if there is an accident. Indeed, many drivers spend a great deal of time training how to transport goods such as petrol and chemicals and how to respond to an accident, should one occur. In addition, hazardous goods often pass through environmentally sensitive areas where any spillage could cause significant damage.

As a result, this is clearly an important regulation. As such, it deserves the full attention of parliamentarians, no matter how tempting it may be for the Government to rush through legislation to change laws in the face of the looming Brexit deadline, ongoing negotiation deadlines and political pressure. We must not, as parliamentarians, allow our standards to slip.

As the Government move to transpose EU regulations into UK law, I will use this opportunity to reiterate the importance of maintaining our high standards, and the need to keep workplaces, the environment and our roads and railways safe. On safety at work, we need the full translation of legislation in order to maintain standards and provide clarity for the sectors that urgently need it. I appreciate that that seems to be the intention today. Workers and industry bodies have called for this.

It is paramount that people at work should be safe, and there are some specific protections in this industry. The petroleum driver passport should be safeguarded. This critical standard, which was hard fought for, protects health and safety, and it ensures high quality in fuel delivery. I urge the Government to work with industry bodies and trade unions to identify similar crucial standards and to move to protect them in UK law. It is not clear from the draft of the SI whether that is the case in this instance.

A number of trade unions have raised concerns with me that regulations covering construction, testing and packaging of intermediate bulk containers, large packaging tanks and bulk containers, which are all currently linked to European standards, are potentially subject to change from 2021. I would ask the Minister, who is very diligent, to take this opportunity to reassure the Committee that future regulations will ensure safety on these matters.

It is also worth pointing out some of the background to this. Surveys of those working in the haulage industry shows that many drivers already work with high levels of tiredness and exhaustion. Given those existing conditions, I believe it is paramount that standards are not allowed to fall, especially when it comes to dangerous goods, which we are discussing today.

In the past, the Government have refused to rule out suspending regulations in order to overcome potential Brexit difficulties, rather like those mentioned in today’s press. Some Members may have seen the report in The Guardian today about the possibility of 7,000 lorries being held up at the border. Again, I ask the Minister to reassure the Committee that she is willing to continue these sensible regulations.

It is also worth mentioning that the industry does not want to see these important standards reduced either. For example, British Aerosol Manufacturers’ Association stresses that current legislation is complex and detailed precisely because this complexity allows for the regulation to guarantee public safety, and the Government should not take shortcuts when it comes to moving these regulations into UK law. Similarly, the Institute of Explosives Engineers also points out that there are currently specific considerations for the transfer of information between the UK and EU bodies. There is a range of similar areas, and I hope the Minister will reassure the Committee that her team and the Department are still considering these matters, and that we will have further reassurance.

More broadly, it is worth noting that EU regulations have played an important role in raising environmental standards in the UK. Friends of the Earth has concluded:

“Through laws, constant pressure and the threat of fines, the EU has been the main force driving the UK government to clean up its act.”

That is across a broad sweep of environmental measures, dealing with beaches, various forms of emissions and hazardous goods.

The Government must demonstrate their commitment to protecting the environment by guaranteeing existing rules in UK law, not merely by making promises. I hope the Minister will agree these issues are of great significance, and if we are to make progress on public work and environmental safety in years to come, we must first guarantee the progress we have already made.