Rail Manufacturing: Job Losses

Nigel Mills Excerpts

Tuesday 16th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Huw Merriman]

The answer is over the course of this year and next year for all of the train manufacturers that the hon. Lady has mentioned. I well remember the visit that both she and I made to the Alstom site with the Transport Committee. As she rightly says, it is a fantastic site, which is why we are working to find a solution. I am certainly encouraged by the conversations that have taken place. We know that everyone wants to find that solution—the Government certainly do—but the hon. Lady will know from all her work on the Transport Committee that legal challenges have to be dealt with in the correct manner. This matter is very sensitive, and it is market sensitive as well, so finding a way through which provides certainty and does not get unpicked is absolutely the right thing for us to do, and that is what we are doing right now.

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)]

The threat to the Alstom factory in Derby is of great concern to the employees in Amber Valley and those employed by the supply chain. Their mood is not helped by the fact that this appears to be a problem not with the quality of the trains, or even with their price, but with compliance with procurement rules that we ourselves put in place only a year or so ago. If it comes down to a choice between having all the i’s dotted and t’s crossed, or having that factory saved for the long term, can I urge the Minister to take a risk on the contract, sort that out later and save the factory, rather than prioritising the contract and risk losing the factory?

[Huw Merriman]

As my hon. Friend has described, this is a careful balance. I reiterate that if we were to award contracts outside of the usual process, other workforces would also be impacted, such as those in Newport, in Newton Aycliffe and in the Hull area. We have to take into account the whole workforce, as well as fair process on the contract. However, as he mentions, trains are being manufactured right now and rolling off the production line up in Derby—South Western trains and East Midlands trains—and they are good-quality trains. As I have said, the challenge is that we have produced a lot of trains over the years, and I really want to help those train manufacturers to export more, because that will fill up the order books so that they are not reliant only on the domestic market. As it gets fresher and younger, in rolling stock years, we need to find a solution outside this country.

M1: Junction 28

Nigel Mills Excerpts

Wednesday 11th January 2023 Westminster Hall

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)]

Thank you, Ms McVey, for calling me. We have plenty of time to make our case. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mark Fletcher) on securing the debate and making so comprehensive a case that there is not much left for the rest of us to say, so we could get an early finish. But hey, we are parliamentarians—we should use the time we are given.

The junction is not in my constituency—it is 2 to 3 miles from the border—but, conveniently, I can look at the live traffic on Google Maps, and at 5 o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon the delays have made it back to my constituency. That highlights the seriousness of my hon. Friend’s case. This is not an occasional problem; it is a daily problem. At peak times, the congestion backs up several miles in every direction from the junction. Something really does need to be done.

Every day, the congestion gets back to part of the A38 at Alfreton and Swanwick where there are houses literally as far from the M1 as I am standing from the Minister. Those people are blighted during the day and night by noise, and at busy times by fumes. At the very least, we could find a way of taking the congestion away so that they are not in that horrible situation.

The Minister probably does not know the junction—although perhaps he has driven along the M1—but it is actually a very large area, so there is plenty of scope for improvements. The reason such significant improvements are needed is that every time there is a new housing development anywhere remotely near the A38, the developer’s prospectus says, “Easy access to the A38. Great connectivity to Nottingham, Derby, Sheffield, the M1.” What it does not say, of course, is that at peak times that connectivity is not quite so great, because vehicles will get stuck in a queue for quite a while.

Access to the road infrastructure—the A38 south, the M1 north, and the A38 going across the M1—is key to the attractiveness of investment in new housing and industrial development. If we cannot improve the situation so that people do not suffer all these delays, that will hold back the local economy. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover that there is a compelling economic case for improvements to the junction. If we want to drive the growth of the region, we need to sort out the congestion on the junction. It is not just about convenience and quality of life; it is about economic growth too.

My hon. Friend tried your patience, Ms McVey, by talking about other M1 junctions. The only other M1 junction I get near is junction 26, when I have to go the other way, past the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson). We have long campaigned for a link road to connect the A38 to that junction, which we have never had. In the absence of such a road, all the traffic that wants to get on to the M1 has to go up the A38 north. If they are not doing that, they are going down the A38 south to get to Derby and Birmingham.

If we do not get connectivity right, we push people into bottlenecks. If there are ever any problems on the M1 south of junction 28, or even on the M42, a lot of traffic will try to nip down the A38 to get on the road to Birmingham, which makes the daily problem even worse. People try to find alternative routes around a horribly congested road network as they go through the east midlands.

I agree that the case for improvements is compelling and really important to provide connectivity to residents of not just Bolsover but Amber Valley and other areas around it. We are not that greedy about the scheme that we would like. I would love to stand here and ask for a flyover on the A38 so that people can just keep driving and not stop at the M1 junction unless they actually want to go on to the M1, but I suspect that would be quite expensive—perhaps there is a business case for it.

We have rightly found a business case in Derby for an underpass and an overpass at the island to the south of my constituency. The problem with those schemes is that they will speed up traffic through Derby on the A38 north that will then just hit this queue. All that traffic will do, if we do not fix junction 28, is get to the end of the queue a bit faster and make it a bit longer. Sorting the junction out will improve the case for the schemes that the Government already have in progress.

As I said earlier, junction 28 is a very large junction, and the traffic island in the middle of it is huge; I think it is the place where loads that need an assistance vehicle to take them further north must wait. They park in the middle of this huge traffic island because there is nowhere in South Yorkshire for them to wait for the police escort handover—they are all done there. There is plenty of space to put more lanes on the island, or to reconfigure the lanes to try to avoid queues conflicting with each other and causing unnecessary tailbacks.

I have not seen any designs, and I do not know whether there are any in place, but there is scope to make some pretty significant improvements without spending a fortune on major re-engineering. We could just add a couple of extra lanes in the right place on the island and on the access roads to get traffic moving more freely and not conflicting. That would not cost tens of millions of pounds, but it would give much of the benefit that we need, and I suspect it could be done relatively quickly. We would not be waiting years, as we have in Derby, for complicated schemes to get planning permission and funding and have their logistics sorted out.

My case in support of my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover is that there is a very real need here. This problem is happening on a very regular basis and causing significant tailbacks that impact the lives of people who live near the A38 and those who try to use it. It is constraining development of both housing and industrial economic growth in the area. There are solutions that are pretty easy to conceive and not that expensive, so I say wholeheartedly that the scheme should be brought forward as soon as possible. It will clearly meet all the various cost-benefit tests that are normally set for this sort of infrastructure improvement.

International Travel Rules

Nigel Mills Excerpts

Monday 19th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Robert Courts]

My hon. Friend puts his finger on a really important point: understanding the importance of vaccines and what that can tell us. There are a number of aspects on which we need to fully understand the science—for example, on the transmissibility of the virus if someone is vaccinated and the effect on different variants. We are working at great speed but doing the work diligently to make sure that we can take full advantage of the success of our vaccine roll-out and protect public health at the same time.

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con) [V]]

Is there anything that the Government can do to help families who have a young adult who is currently 17, but who turns 18 during the holiday season? They cannot be vaccinated and, if they can, they cannot have both, and yet they can perhaps travel away but they cannot come back if they have turned 18 in the meantime. Is there any way we can relax the rule, perhaps to apply it from September, so that families can have a holiday together?

[Robert Courts]

The rules as they apply are laid out in detail online and all families can look at those and understand them. I am very happy to consider that suggestion and any others that right hon. and hon. Members may have to refine the system, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that point.

Britain’s Railways

Nigel Mills Excerpts

Thursday 20th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

I do agree, but we have a fundamental issue here: our railways were built by the Victorians, who did not have any kind of disability discrimination legislation at the time. Many of the stations are far less accessible than we would want to see, which is why we have the Access For All fund, with which the hon. Lady is familiar. I always encourage people to bid for it. There is no prouder moment than when I go round the country with my fellow Ministers to open up stations that are now accessible to people in every kind of way, and I encourage her to apply for that. I have to say that the Chancellor would be pretty surprised to hear the hon. Lady talk about his “cuts” to our railways. He has just put £12 billion into keeping them running over the past year due to covid.

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con) [V]]

I welcome any reform that puts passenger interests at the heart of the railway, but may I say to the Secretary of State that what passengers in Alfreton and Langley Mill want is for their direct link to London each day to be retained and not scrapped by East Midlands Railway? Can he confirm that, under his new structure, those sort of decisions about where trains stop and how often will be for the new Great British Railways Company and not for the individual franchisee or operator to make?

[Grant Shapps]

My hon. Friend illustrates the problem with the setup that we have at the moment, where each individual railway company bids for its own bit of the track—its own path. We are not using the railway as efficiently as we should, so we cannot run as many services as we should. I can absolutely confirm to my hon. Friend that all decisions on direct links to London will be made by Great British Railways in the future. I should have pointed out to the House that this is a multi-year upgrade to our railways. It will take time to provide fully, as the White Paper explains, and it will require primary legislation. However, we will get on with the main parts of it today, so from today, things will start to improve.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nigel Mills Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Ms Ghani]

The hon. Lady will know that most of our railway stations were built in an era when no thought was given to accessibility, let alone to parents and people with wheelchairs. That is why we have a £300 million fund, which is supporting over 73 stations, and another tier of £20 million for smaller upgrades. I know that there are two stations in her constituency in the review, and she will not have to be patient for much longer.

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)]

Will the Minister urge Network Rail to get on with the level access improvements at Alfreton station and urge East Midlands Railway to scrap its plans to end the direct train services to London from my constituency, which would make it harder for disabled passengers to get to stations south of Nottingham?

[Ms Ghani]

I am a little cautious about the second point, but I will most definitely do what my hon. Friend asks on the first. Network Rail has a duty to make sure its stations have decent accessibility, and where there is no accessibility, the rail operating companies have a duty to make sure passengers can carry on with their journey.

Thomas Cook

Nigel Mills Excerpts

Wednesday 25th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

It is hugely distressing to hear about people who are stuck. The CAA is actively monitoring anyone who calls in—the line is there, and the website is there—and even people who post on social media. If the hon. Gentleman would like to get assistance for his constituents, I will make sure that he is able to hook up with the CAA to get the message through. It should be said that I do not know his constituents’ particular circumstances, or whether they are under ATOL—in other words, whether their hotel is automatically being paid for, although it looks like it is not—but every effort is being made to bring people home. I hope the hon. Gentleman will understand that hiring 45 aircraft, when the 737 Max is out of commission and the market is therefore restricted, has made this an enormous project. Sometimes that has meant that we have had the wrong size aircraft for the number of passengers. However, the hon. Gentleman’s constituents, if they are stuck, will be given every assistance, and I think he and I can help get them that assistance.

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)]

Given that we cannot distinguish in this situation between passengers on a package holiday booking and passengers on a flight-only booking, does the Secretary of State agree that we should now bring flight-only bookings into the ATOL regime so that we have a fair contribution from those passengers and airlines?

[Grant Shapps]

It is not quite the case that we cannot distinguish, although I take my hon. Friend’s point. We can distinguish between the two, but there is a strong argument for making sure that, when someone books a flight one way or the other, it is insured and that the cost does not ultimately fall on the taxpayer.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nigel Mills Excerpts

Thursday 21st March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)]

Will the Minister join me in urging Midlands Connect to have a balance of schemes in the east midlands and not just the west midlands? Perhaps he will commend to Midlands Connect the M1-A38 link road and Codnor bypass as it will be a perfect scheme to prove its commitment to the east midlands.

[Jesse Norman]

I thank my hon. Friend for registering that point in the most public way possible. I am not aware of any particular bias in Midlands Connect; I do not think it has one. We work closely with it on any of the schemes that it brings forward.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Grayling]

I know well the team that runs the CAA, and I can give the right hon. Gentleman an undertaking that they would not sign off anything that they believed was unsafe.

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

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

I am pleased to announce today that I have approved more than £54 million of funding for the north-west relief road in Shrewsbury. It is an important route that will take cars away from the town centre, reducing congestion, cutting journey times and improving air quality within Shrewsbury, and it forms part of a £1.8 billion programme in the midlands alone to improve motorways and major roads.

[Nigel Mills]

May I take the Secretary of State back a year to when he came with me to Alfreton station in my constituency and saw the need for level access to the south-bound platform? Now that the new funding period is starting, can I get an update on when money will be released to deliver that improvement?

[Chris Grayling]

I am aware of that issue, which my hon. Friend and I saw together, and I will ask the rail Minister to give him an early update.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nigel Mills Excerpts

Thursday 1st March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jesse Norman]

One wonders if style is everything in these matters or whether content should have a place at some point. The answer to that question is that of course we will continue to look at it, but I doubt the answer will change.

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)]

14. What steps his Department is taking to support community transport operators.

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

In the 2016-17 financial year, the Department spent almost £3.5 million on supporting the community transport sector through the bus services operators’ grant, and since January 2013 it has devolved approximately £2.9 million of that grant to support local councils’ community transport services. As my hon. Friend will be aware, the Department is currently consulting on changes to the law and guidance on the use of section 19 and section 22 permits. The consultation closes on 4 May.

[Nigel Mills]

The Minister will know that the changes on which he is consulting pose a real threat to the future of some operators. What more can he do to protect the existing use of permits rather than require what are generally small local charities to move to the full commercial status of the operator licence?

[Jesse Norman]

As colleagues will know, I have spent a lot of time working with the bodies responsible for the sector and visiting local community transport organisations. I take my hat off to them for the astonishing work that they do, which is, in a way, a form of social care as much as a form of transport, if not more so. Our consultation document, which I am sure my hon. Friend will have read, lays out three potential exemptions: derogations from commercial operators in favour of community transport operators, showing that there is in fact no competition in specific cases; a potential distance exemption of 15 miles from a particular hub; and the separation of commercial and non-commercial activities. We expect them to receive a lot of comments. I am not aware of a direct threat to any operators in particular, but we very much seek their feedback.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nigel Mills Excerpts

Thursday 19th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Paul Maynard]

I share the concern. We have continuous contact with the train operating companies at an official and a ministerial level—I frequently meet them. Where there are sustained examples of poor performance, they are escalated to what is called the national taskforce, where the train operating company must present to the wider industry what measures it is taking to reverse poor performance, and I will then meet that train operating company. I recognise the concerns around Northern. My primary concern at this stage is to ensure that new infrastructure is opened around the Greater Manchester area so that Northern can operate new rolling stock to replace the appalling Pacers, and introduce the new services that the Ordsall Chord, in particular, will enable.

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)]

Can the Minister require train operators to allow passengers who start their journey at a station that has no ticket facilities to use a print-at-home ticket, so that passengers at Langley Mill station in my constituency can actually use the cheaper advance tickets that they currently cannot?

[Paul Maynard]

I think that is a perfectly fair observation. We are seeking to ensure that when technology enables new forms of ticketing to be introduced, we move on that as far as possible. That includes paperless ticketing. It also includes work on barcode ticketing, which can be displayed on mobile phones. We have to do much better at ensuring that people may choose the ticket mode that works best for them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nigel Mills Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

As I said, this is a choice; we want not only to deliver high-quality infrastructure for the future, but to do so in a way that is environmentally sensitive. That means spending money on tunnels, cuttings and things that other countries would perhaps choose not to do. I want to retain a careful stewardship of Britain’s green and pleasant land while delivering what we need for the future, and that is what we are doing.

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)]

7. What recent assessment he has made of progress on delivery of Access for All projects by Network Rail.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Paul Maynard)]

Since 2014, the Access for All programme has completed accessible routes at 25 stations, with 12 more currently in construction, and a further 52 at various stages of design and development.

[Nigel Mills]

The Minister will understand the real anger in Alfreton at the further delays in the Access for All programme at the station there, where many passengers still cannot use the southbound platform. Can he at least reassure them that the station will be prioritised in the next block of funding, so that the improvements are done in 2019?

[Paul Maynard]

We had to delay 26 Access for All projects into control period 6, one of which was, unfortunately, Alfreton, because the project there was less developed than others we were considering. Nevertheless, I can reassure my hon. Friend that I am making it clear to Network Rail that I expect the improvements to be delivered early in control period 6, after 2019.