Severn Bridges

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2017 Westminster Hall

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

Thank you very much, Mr Davies. I think this is the first time I have served under your chairmanship. I am sure it will be a pleasure.

Many congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden). For the entire parliamentary career of her predecessor, who was first elected in 1965, this was the dominant issue. If we look back over the years to see how we got into this position, as early as 1936, there was a Bill to build a bridge across the Severn, but to our great shame it was opposed by Newport Council, which did not want one built.

There was, however, the misery of the Beachley-Aust ferry, which I can vividly remember crossing on in the late ’50s in my Mini. I do not know whether anyone else can remember it, but it was a terrifying, nightmare experience—we were packed in such that we could not open the car doors once stuck on the ferry, which followed a zig-zag course across the turbulent waters of the Severn that were rushing past. It was an incredibly hazardous journey, but with huge queues to get on the ferry, so the people of Wales were prepared to take anything to get a bridge there and see the disappearance of the ferry.

A deal was therefore struck, but in later years it became clear that the fragility of a single crossing made a second one necessary. I do not think any Members present were in Parliament at the time, but in 1992 another deal was done. What was put in law, however, was clear. A formula was agreed and the Severn Bridges Act 1992 stated that, once the obligation was paid to the company, bridge tolls would cease. That obligation will end either this year or early next year. The bridges will come into public ownership and will be in exactly the same position as any other part of the motorway system. They should be treated accordingly, as my hon. Friend said. The Humber bridge had £150 million of debt written off, but the Severn ones need a much smaller amount, and it should be written off, making the bridges part of the national, multi-billion-pound bill for all highways. The bridges are in no way different from any other stretch of motorway.

I find the Conservative party’s treatment of the reduction in tolls distasteful. It had to come—it is in the 1992 Act that the tolls have to stop, and it would be illegal not to do so. If the Government do not stop the tolls, there will be a legal challenge, as has been suggested in the Welsh Assembly. That is the legal position. A wonderful picture in the South Wales Argus had a trinity of Tories, all grinning widely, lined up against a background of the bridges. The local MP and the Secretaries of State for Wales and for Transport were all trying to get across this confidence trick: “We’re going to lower tolls for you. We generous Tories are going to get the tolls down—they won’t be £6.70, £5.70 or even £4.70; they will be £3.70.” That was what the Government said.

[Carolyn Harris (Swansea East) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden) on securing this important debate. Does my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) agree that rail electrification to Swansea not yet materialising and Government reluctance to reduce greatly or scrap the tolls indicate a reluctance by the Westminster Government to support the economy and its vibrancy in south Wales?

[Paul Flynn]

Absolutely, because both those things would have a major effect. It is a matter of great regret that the Government have not been inclined to spread the very welcome electrification of the railway that far. Certainly, economic vibrancy means everything. The cost of the toll is not huge given other motoring costs that we pay—buying a car, insuring it, fuelling it—but it is a psychological barrier for Wales. It seems to be in the way, and people see it as a great disincentive to business and leisure traffic.

To get back to the trinity of Tories posed by the Severn bridge, £3.70 was the figure they were quoting. I challenged the Secretary of State for Wales about that, because he described £3.70 as a 50% cut. A well-known conclusion about opinion polls is that 50% of the population do not understand what 50% means, and we can include the Secretary of State among those people because in no brand of mathematics is £3.70 half of £6.70. The next week the new rate was announced, with the huckster, the snake-oil salesman, saying, “No, not £3.70, it’s going to be £3”—but no reason why—“or, better than that, £1.50, but, sadly, both ways.” That is how this confidence trick is being sold to the people of Wales and the west of England.

There is no case for continuing with the tolls. If the Government are going to charge £3, as my hon. Friend the Member for Newport East asked, how is that figure reached? In no way can all the costs be put together and multiplied, even with extra costs added here and there, to get to a figure of £3. The Welsh Affairs Committee investigated, and its figure was an absolute maximum of £1.50, which was very generous in allowing for how things would be run and all kinds of new arrangements for the TAG system. Will the Minister tell us what makes up the £3? I believe that most of the costs are for running the bridge itself—costs that would disappear if the Government abided by the Severn Bridges Act and got rid of the tolls altogether.

For 50 years, the people of south Wales and the west of England have been double taxed. As the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams) said, we are all paying our taxes—we pay for roads throughout the country in the same way as everyone else does—so why on earth should we have to pay twice for our local road? The toll is almost unique now, with few others left. The Government should sweep away any debt and take the bridges into the roads spending budget.

You will remember, Mr Davies, from your reading of Welsh history and your deep knowledge of religion, this passage from Genesis, at chapter 24, verse 60:

“And they blessed Rebekah, and said unto her, Thou art our sister, be thou the mother of thousands of millions, and let thy seed possess the gate of those which hate them.”

That verse, in an interesting part of Welsh history, is the reason why the Rebecca riots started. For those less well versed in Welsh history, what happened was that between 1839 and 1843 the Hosts of Rebecca were formed, when men dressed up as Rebecca—a bit of cross-dressing, which was rather unusual at that time in that part of Wales—to charge against the toll gates and destroy them. The toll gates, owned by alien landlords, were barriers to the free movement of goods and people, so the Rebeccas destroyed them. It is time for the Hosts of Rebecca to be revived. We remember their cause, because we now have a similar situation: a Tory Government are out to disguise a rip-off as an act of generosity.

[Stephen Doughty]

My hon. Friend speaks with the greatest eloquence, as ever, and his example is one for readers of Hansard to enjoy. Does he agree that given that we have had to wait for electrification, that we do not have clarity about new stations and that there is still this chokehold over the Severn bridges, which is coming off a little but not nearly enough, many people in Wales—particularly south Wales—look at the Government’s support for High Speed 2 and think, “We’re being treated differently from the rest of the UK”?

[Paul Flynn]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I wish the Government would not try to pose as generous people who are giving us a gift. Those three grins should be wiped off the faces of our trinity of Tories.

[Glyn Davies]

rose—

[Paul Flynn]

I thought that might excite the hon. Gentleman. I will give way in a moment. We must get through to the reality of this: it is not an act of generosity or a cut; it is a rip-off.

[Glyn Davies]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for allowing me to interject in his colourful presentation. I read an article by Lee Waters, a Labour Assembly Member who is concerned about reducing the tolls. I do not think he voted against doing so in the Assembly, but he certainly made a lot of public comments acknowledging that one consequence of cutting the tolls completely would be far less spending on other considerations that he thinks are important. Does the hon. Gentleman have any sympathy at all with Mr Waters’ views?

[Paul Flynn]

Mr Waters takes a view that is very much on the side of the environment and so on, but the vote in the Assembly to get rid of the tolls was unanimous. I do not know what Mr Waters has said, but it is the unanimous view of the Welsh Assembly that the tolls should disappear altogether. We want to hear from the Minister how the £3 figure is made up. How much of it is the cost of running the tolls? How much of it would disappear? We need the answers today. We have been far too tolerant for so many years in putting up with double taxation in south Wales.

[Chris Elmore]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his quick canter through the history of the Rebecca riots, which are a fascinating part of our proud Welsh history. He is talking eloquently, as usual, about the impact on people—our constituents—but there is also a massive impact on business. My hon. Friend the Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden) talked about businesses in the city that they both represent. In my constituency, there are large-scale companies such as Rockwool and Northwood & WEPA Ltd. The latter produces toilet roll—we are a proud toilet roll-producing constituency—and travels right across the United Kingdom. The toll is a double tax on business. Does my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West agree that that has a negative impact on bringing new start-up businesses to Wales?

[Paul Flynn]

Absolutely. It is a mega-disincentive to all forms of activity and commercial life. It is seen as a problem at the docks in Newport and in every other industry. Take the leisure trade: do people go on holiday in Cornwall or face the obstacle of the bridge and possible hold-ups there? I am sure that it is a disincentive to all commercial activity in Wales.

I was part of agreeing the deal in ’92, and I think the only person who objected to it was a Member who wanted to bring the toll up from £4.90 to an even fiver. Other than that, there was unanimity in Parliament at the time that we had to face the issue, we needed another bridge and we would put up with the misery of paying tolls for it until a specified time. That time will be up this year. The debt that we owed to the Severn bridges company will be discharged. It has made its money. The bridges are ours. Let us treat them in the same way as every other piece of road in the motorway system.

--- Later in debate ---

[Geraint Davies (in the Chair)]

I am sure that is very welcome.

[Paul Flynn]

Will the right hon. Gentleman elevate himself to a star in the political firmament by abandoning his pre-prepared script and answering the debate? It would be a rare and delicious experience for us.

[Mr Hayes]

I was hinting at that already and I have done so many times previously. Although I would not claim to be the shiniest of stars, I am starlike—at least, that is how I would describe it. In that spirit, I will deal with some of the—I will not say inaccuracies because that would be too unkind—exaggerations in the hon. Gentleman’s grasp of history. Let us start with when the tolls began. He brings—I do not blame him for this for a second—a certain tribal prejudice to these things and he ascribed the tolls to those he characterised as Tories. He knows, however, that the tolls were first introduced in 1966.

I wonder whether any Member present in the Chamber could remind me of who was in government in 1966. I recall that it was a Labour Government who, when the bridge was first opened, cemented tolls as a means of partly funding the cost of the development. In fairness to the hon. Member for Newport West, he said the Welsh would have accepted any deal at all, but he did not say that they would have accepted any deal from the then Labour Government, and tolls began at the inception and have continued since. The Chamber will recall that it was a Conservative Government that pegged the tolls in 1992. You will remember the 1992 Act, Mr Davies, which says the tolls can rise only in line with the retail prices index. Indeed, they have risen since then by only that amount.

Before I move on to the main substance of my remarks—I do not want to short-change any hon. Member by not dealing with the specific questions that they raised—I have one other historical matter to deal with. The Rebecca riots, which began in 1839 as the hon. Member for Newport West said, concluded in 1844, as he will also know, for several reasons. It is true that extra troops were deployed to dissuade those who were rioting from taking action against the tolls; it is true, too, that many of those who were causing disturbances resisted the violence that some of their compatriots recommended; but it is also true—the hon. Gentleman will want me to fill the gap and add to the quality of his account—that criminal gangs became involved in the riots. They used the disguise of the original complaint of the rioters to engage in all kinds of malevolent activities. That is the full account of the Rebecca riots for those who are interested in the history of such things and want an unabridged, uncorrupted and balanced account of those events.

[Paul Flynn]

It depends how we look at history. I once read a book that asserted that only the future is certain, but the past is always changing. We have just seen an example of that and of somebody rewriting his own history. However, it is a matter of great honour and pride to us in Newport that in 1839 the last Chartist riot took place in order to set up a republic. We have week-long celebrations every year. That is our view of history and the Chartist riot was contemporaneous with the Rebecca riots. It was a glorious start to socialism in this country and throughout Europe, and something of which we are very proud. Of course, there is a black history interpretation whereby people with a Conservative mood of mind try to fictionalise those great events, but they were heroic and it is time to bring them back.

[Geraint Davies (in the Chair)]

I confirm this is in order because it is a bridge to the future.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jessica Morden]

rose—

[Paul Flynn]

rose—

[Mr Hayes]

I will give way first to my hon. Friend.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hayes]

The reason I said I wanted to break down the costs is that, as the hon. Lady will understand, as well as a capital cost to be recouped in the form of a debt, maintenance costs are associated with any crossing of this kind. She will be familiar with the details of the Severn Bridges Act 1992, which makes it clear that those costs can be included in any tolling system through to 2027. The operational, maintenance and servicing costs are real, and are borne by those who pay for the crossing through tax and tolls. As I have described, a balance has to be struck, and that is why the Government are engaged in consultation in response to calls from the hon. Lady, among others.

Having been slightly unkind to the hon. Member for Newport West, I will mention that he has longer and more profound experience in this context even than that of the hon. Member for Newport East—certainly than mine; I pay tribute to the fact that both hon. Members have been consistent in advocating their constituents’ interests in making their case about the crossing. I hope that they, in similar good faith, will recognise that I will do my best to bring about a reasonable and fair outcome to the consultation, which will guarantee the interests of all concerned into the future.

[Paul Flynn]

How was the £3 figure arrived at? What are its components? Past examinations have suggested that there is no way that future costs would make it anything like that. Is not it true that the Wales Office has lost out to the Exchequer? The Treasury has said, “We want to continue to use the bridges as cash cows for as long as we can.”

[Mr Hayes]

The £3 cost brings the charge much more closely into line with the Humber estuary, the Dartford crossing, and so on; but none of those figures is magical or derived from a mystical process. They are designed to reflect the real costs of running the crossing—the operational and maintenance costs and the capital costs over time. I have already conceded in the third of my five points—you will remember, Mr Davies, as you follow such things assiduously, that I said I would make five points—that I would break down the costs further. I am happy to do so, in the interest of being straightforward in this debate and in the consultation.

It is true that businesses on both sides of the Severn have long called for reductions in tolls—thus our response, in the form of the consultation. The crossings will of course return to public ownership early in 2018, so this is the right time for what we are doing. The main proposal is to abolish the toll category for vans and small buses and halve the tolls for all vehicles. That 50% reduction should not be disregarded and I know that the hon. Member for Newport East would not want it to be.