Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nusrat Ghani and Lord Grayling

Thursday 24th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ms Ghani]

Not at all.

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

It was the hooting of a bus horn.

[Ms Ghani]

It happened because I was about to mention two very important packages of funding.

The Department contributed just over £32 million towards the £43.2 million Manchester cross city bus package, which was completed in 2017. Now we need another little beat of the drum, because there is another huge sum coming up. The Greater Manchester combined authority received a guaranteed allocation of £243 million from the £1.7 billion transforming cities fund to improve public transport. If the hon. Gentleman is still not satisfied, I suggest that he talk to the Mayor.

Monarch Airlines

Debate between Nusrat Ghani and Lord Grayling

Monday 9th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

We will certainly give some thought to that. It is very noticeable that other airlines have been able to carry on flying in administration. The risk, of course, is that an aircraft could easily be impounded by an international airline. One of the reasons we sought to hire our own fleet was to remove that risk. If we had used the Monarch planes, there was a danger that, if they arrived at an airport and a local creditor decided to take action, the plane might have been unable to return. That is something we always need to weigh in the balance. We need to look at what happened with Air Berlin and Alitalia and see whether there are lessons to be learned, but first and foremost our task should always be to protect passengers whose journeys might otherwise be at risk.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

Price wars, stiff competition and a change in travel habits all contributed to Monarch’s failure. My constituents in Wealden have been in touch about their holidays and business trips being ruined. Can the Secretary of State confirm that he and his ministerial colleagues have visited returning passengers at UK airports and say what feedback he has received?

[Chris Grayling]

I met the first flight back at Manchester airport last Monday and my noble Friend Lord Callanan visited Leeds Bradford airport on the same day to meet people coming back. I have had a lot of letters from people who were able to travel back on the repatriation flights saying how grateful they were and how smooth it had been. There are bound to be some hiccups on the way—we had weather problems in Funchal, which led to some cancellations—but in overall terms this has been a very smooth effort and a great tribute to a team of people in the CAA who are not airline specialists, but who have come together to run an airline in a way that was, frankly, enormously impressive.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nusrat Ghani and Lord Grayling

Thursday 13th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I have never doubted that. Of course, the balance between regions will depend on what projects are happening at the time. The hon. lady will have seen in our manifesto the commitment to the northern powerhouse rail programme, which will mean a significant change in the balance. I am waiting for Transport for the North to come forward with its recommendations on the form that should take. There are other benefits for her constituency. It will see the arrival in the very near future of a new generation of express trains on the east coast main line, which will be vastly better than her constituents have at the moment.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

The Gibb report put forward a solid business case for the electrification of the Uckfield line, which runs through my constituency of Wealden. Will the Secretary of State meet me and local campaigners to get this project on track?

[Chris Grayling]

I am very happy to meet my hon. Friend, and I absolutely recognise the issue. The other part of deliberations around the Uckfield line is the private-sector proposal, which I have said we will happily look at, to create BML2—the Brighton main line 2. We should look at all these things in the round and ask what is the best future for that route, but I am very happy to meet my hon. Friend.

Chris Gibb Report: Improvements to Southern Railway

Debate between Nusrat Ghani and Lord Grayling

Tuesday 4th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. This is a shocking state of affairs. The reality is that there are some thoroughly good people working on our railways—people who do not agree with the current action and who just want to do the right job for their passengers. However, their leadership is now leading them up a path that they do not want to go up, and that is not in the interests of the staff or the passengers.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

Following on from that point, did my right hon. Friend hear the statement on Russia Today television from Mr Hedley, an activist in the RMT? He said:

“It’s very clear in our rule book, we’re in an antagonistic relationship with the managers and with the bosses. We want to overthrow capitalism and create a socialist form of society.”

How does that help our passengers?

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The trouble is that this is all about politics rather than about the interests of the railways or of passengers getting on with their daily lives. It is a tragedy.

Rail Infrastructure (Train Operating Companies)

Debate between Nusrat Ghani and Lord Grayling

Tuesday 6th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

As the right hon. Gentleman will be aware from the autumn statement, the Oxford-Cambridge corridor is a much broader project than just a railway line. It is seen as a key development corridor by the Treasury and the National Infrastructure Commission. We also need to look at the construction of improved road links between the two, so it is much more complicated than simply saying, “It’s a railway line.” However, we need to build a model that secures developer contributions on the route. It is good for our rail sector to have a bit of contestability. The assumption that Network Rail should always do everything does not give us any benchmarks to judge whether someone else can do it better. I want to use this as an opportunity, in a way that does not affect the rest of the network, to test the way that we are doing things, and to see whether we can do them quicker and better.

[Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

Passengers in my constituency just want a better service—one that matches the train timetable—and this is something that I have raised with the Secretary of State on a number of occasions. I agree that both track and train teams need to work together to focus on delivering a better service, especially on the Upfield line. What improvements will my constituents see with this new initiative?

[Chris Grayling]

One thing I asked Chris Gibb to do around the Southern route was to start to create the kind of partnership that I have described today. My early experience on this route—and the early experience of the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard)—was that Network Rail and the train operator were not working closely together and not addressing problems together. Sadly, the real challenge in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Nusrat Ghani) is the ongoing industrial action, which is utterly pointless. No one is losing their job, and no one is losing any money; this is all about adopting new technologies and ways of working that are already custom and practice on the same routes. The action is a tragedy, and it is unacceptable. I again call on the unions to go back to work.