Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Thursday 23rd February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Norman Baker]

I have been in regular contact with my colleagues at the Department for Education and the Confederation of Passenger Transport for some months now. Local members of the Youth Parliament in East Sussex have been to make a presentation to the Bus Partnership Forum, which I chair, and I have indicated to the CPT the need to work with the Department to address the issue.

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

Does the Minister agree that forward-thinking principals of further education colleges are using their bursaries to think of innovative community transport-based solutions, to ensure that young people who find that their bus service has disappeared can still get to college safely, securely and cheaply and continue their education?

[Norman Baker]

I agree with my hon. Friend. There is certainly a role for community transport, which is why we have provided an extra £20 million over the past few months for investment in it. We have also encouraged the bus companies themselves to recognise that there is a potential future market in the age group in question.

--- Later in debate ---

[Justine Greening]

Although I cannot give the hon. Gentleman an exact timeline, I can assure him that we are working hard on this matter, and he was quite right to raise it in the first place.

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

T9. I am sure that Ministers all welcome The Times campaign for safer cycling. What steps does the Department think it can take to ensure that cyclists join motorists in taking responsibility for ensuring their own safety while cycling—for example, by ensuring that their bicycles have bells attached and that they are not listening to music while cycling?

[Mike Penning]

It is the responsibility of everybody on the highway to ensure that they are aware of what their situation is, alert to what is going on around them—particularly if they are cyclists—and, at the same time, visible to other road users. At the same time, however, they need to be protected as well.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point and I completely agree with it. Like many Members in this House, I want to see a United Kingdom and one of the ways we can unite our kingdom is through high-speed rail.

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

Is the shadow Minister aware that on this issue we need to consider not only what the British Government can do, but what the Scottish Government can do? Is she prepared to consider allowing the Scottish Government to ensure that they can start to build the high-speed line themselves, using their own money and at no cost to English taxpayers?

[Mr Speaker]

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman did not intend to relegate or demote the Secretary of State.

Rail Fares

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Wednesday 11th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Maria Eagle]

I have already given way to the right hon. Lady and to the hon. Gentleman, so I will make some progress in my speech. At the very least, rail passengers would like tickets to state clearly the precise time restrictions that apply instead of simply being referred to some obscure part of a website that they do not have access to when purchasing a ticket.

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Maria Eagle]

I want to make a few points about what I have heard from passengers and will try to give way to the hon. Gentleman later.

Secondly, passengers want a legal right to be offered the cheapest ticket for the journey they wish to make, and they do not think that it is too much to ask that the cheapest fare must be clearly advertised. Should passengers not be entitled to a refund if they have not been sold the cheapest ticket?

Under this Government, it is to become harder to buy the cheapest ticket if plans to replace staff with machines and close all 675 category E station ticket offices are implemented, yet that is what Ministers are considering, along with cutting the opening hours of 302 category D station ticket offices. All the evidence suggests that many people are not sold the cheapest ticket when they buy a ticket online or from a machine.

Thirdly, passengers have told us that they want the cheapest fares to be available wherever tickets are sold, yet the cheapest fares often appear to be available only online. Should not the same fare structure apply to tickets purchased at train stations and other outlets as applies to those bought online, ending the digital divide that is arising and increasing costs for older passengers, in particular?

Fourthly, what really annoys rail users is when they make a genuine mistake or are forced to change their travel plans but find themselves treated as a common criminal in front of other passengers and required to get out their cheque book and cough up. Of course we have to protect revenue, but we also have to have some common sense. Within the same period of the day, there has to be greater flexibility to vary plans, even on pre-booked tickets. Trains are not airlines, and we do not wish to go down the road of airline-style ticketing, with no cheap walk-on option.

Finally, passengers told us—

[Maria Eagle]

If the hon. Gentleman will just let me get to the end of my points, I may give way to him.

Finally, passengers told us that they understand that sometimes a track has to close, such as for essential work, to keep our railways safe, but when a rail replacement service makes their journey longer, often adding considerable inconvenience, they want to know why their ticket costs the same. They can apply for a discount if their train is delayed, but not if it turns out not even to be a train and ends up being a bus.

Those are all ideas that we are looking at seriously, because for too long Governments have let the train companies get away with treating passengers in a way that would not be permitted in other industries.

[Paul Maynard]

Is the hon. Lady seriously arguing that peak hours on the west coast main line should be the same as those on Merseytravel lines?

[Maria Eagle]

I am arguing that it is important to have a national understanding of peak hours, so that passengers are not clobbered and do not have to wait until what seems like a long time after normal peak hours in order to get on a train home. That would be an improvement, and it would clarify the system. People would not be caught out as they frequently are, and they would not be inconvenienced by having to wait for hours after their meeting has finished in order to get on a train home.

If this Government are not going to stand up to the train companies and take on vested interests, we will. Those are all ideas that we are looking at seriously.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Harris]

That says quite a lot about the Secretary of State’s reluctance to accept her own culpability for supporting the spending plans of the previous Labour Government.

I do not believe that the railway industry is broken, or a basket case. I was proud to serve as a railway Minister in the last Labour Government, and I understand the successes that have grown from 13 years of Labour governance of the railway industry. We have more people travelling on the railways than at any time in their history outside of wartime. We have more services every working day than ever before, and punctuality is at an all-time high. Those were achievements that this Government have managed to continue—and I hope that that continues—but fares are a fundamental weakness. They are the crucial interface between the travelling public and the railways and—irrespective of the public subsidy to the railways—if we do not make rail travel affordable for ordinary people, it will not be surprising if they feel that the railways are letting them down.

The previous Secretary of State for Transport, the right hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Hammond), famously described the railways as a “rich man’s toy”. A few weeks ago, I challenged the Secretary of State in the Transport Committee about whether she agreed with that assessment and, understandably, she did not want to commit herself. She told the Transport Committee that she wanted to see the balance between the taxpayer and the fare payer move towards the latter. She also said that in the long term she wanted the fare payer to pay less. Well, she can have one or she can have the other, but she cannot have both. It is clear that unless the taxpayers’ contribution is increased, fares will not come down. The Secretary of State refused to answer that point at the time.

[Paul Maynard]

The hon. Gentleman raises the interesting question of whether the burden can be switched to the fare-paying passenger at the same time as reducing fares. Does he agree that if we do what McNulty recommends and try to reduce the overall cost base of the railways, that conundrum could be solved?

[Mr Harris]

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman, who also sits on the Transport Committee, is as much of an expert as any other Member, and I will agree to consider his comments.

The Prime Minister was wrong today and failed to give the facts about the policy of the last Labour Government and the policy of this Government. Even if it was for only one year, Lord Adonis managed to challenge the rail industry on the so-called basket of fares and whether the RPI plus 1% policy should apply to individual fares or to a basket of fares. He got a lot of support on both sides of the House for insisting—against the arguments of his own officials and the resistance of the industry—that that policy should apply only to individual fares. As we know, if it is applied to a basket of fares, some can go up by 6%, instead of 1%. Whether or not that was a temporary agreement for one year, surely when a new franchise is let the Minister has a responsibility to challenge the industry and set such an arrangement in stone at the very start.

When the railways were first privatised, the policy—it was then RPI minus 1%—was applied to a basket of fares, as agreed with Ministers. That was what Lord Adonis succeeded in challenging, but sadly only for one year. Will the Secretary of State give a commitment that, in future new franchises, the Adonis approach will be applied to fares to protect fare payers and to ensure that train operating companies take money out of their own pockets, rather than the pockets of fare-paying passengers?

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate. Paragraph 13 of the final McNulty report states quite clearly:

“Fares structures do not send efficient pricing signals, particularly in terms of managing peak demand, and are extremely complex.”

As a frequent user of the west coast main line I can only concur with that diagnosis, but what has struck me about today’s debate has been the lack of any praise for what the Government are doing to tackle it. I am not just talking about RPI plus 1 rather than RPI plus 3, or about the fact that we have more passengers on our railways than we did in the 1920s, but I find it strange that the Opposition find it difficult to recognise our investment, particularly in the north-west with the Ordsall chord, which is the first stage of the northern hub, and the electrification of the line to Blackpool—and that is before we get on to High Speed 2; I am told than those on both Front Benches are suffering a degree of HS2 fatigue.

I listened to the speech from the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle), the shadow Secretary of State, and I began to ask myself whether that was the new reality and the new approach for tough times or whether it was just about borrowing a bit more—the same old story and the same old solution—without saying where it would come from. That is not just a knockabout point, as it goes to the heart of transport policy. The previous Labour Government, rightly in my view, wanted to shift the burden of paying for our railways from the taxpayer to the fare-paying passenger, a policy that this Government are continuing. I am not quite sure I understand why the Labour Opposition do not want to continue with that approach. I began to get a bit confused. As I listened to the hon. Lady, I felt like I was watching a game of what I call policy Twister, where a Front-Bench team try to contort themselves into new poses to fit the leader’s latest re-launch. As someone who spent many years in an opposition front-bench team, I know what it feels like. I have been there, done that and bought the T-shirt.

I do not want to denigrate the hon. Lady’s proposals, as I thought that some of them made a lot of sense. For example, I have concerns about the digital divide and the availability of fares only online, and she was right to raise that. I feel, however, that in the wider debate we need a slightly more coherent understanding of what the McNulty review recommends. I am concerned that the debate seems to focus on what is said in the latest RMT or Transport Salaried Staffs Association press release. This is not just about ticket offices—and, by the by, I share many people’s concerns about the loss of ticket offices. We need to understand that McNulty goes much further than that.

Somewhere within rail policy, we must discuss where the burden lies and where the balance falls between the fare-paying passenger and the taxpayer. Given that McNulty called for a fare review and we are delivering a fare review at the end of the year, I am a little perplexed as to why the Opposition could not wait to see what is in the fare review. I am proud to serve on the Select Committee on Transport and I am looking forward to our cross-examination regarding the documents when they come forward. I have no doubt that we will find some flaws and will communicate those flaws to the Government in our usual courteous way, and that will be a good thing. Hon. Members have to recognise that there is a Command Paper coming out that will look at the structure of our railways and that there is a fare review coming out that will also address the issues.

The hon. Member for Garston and Halewood illustrated a useful point when she confirmed to me that one of her core beliefs is that the peak period should be the same in Euston as in Merseyside. I should think that would raise some very interesting problems. Anyone who uses the west coast main line, as I am sure she does to get back to Liverpool, must realise that at peak hours on a Friday the place is a hell hole. Passengers have to be put in cattle pens; it is not acceptable. Is she suggesting that we should reduce the standard national peak time? That would just cause that problem at Euston every day of the week and make it worse. Is she suggesting that we should have a much longer national peak hour? That would make it quite hard for many of our parents and neighbours who travel from Runcorn into Lime Street to do their shopping in Liverpool One to get there and back in a day on an off-peak ticket. That is an example of how the policies that the hon. Lady has suggested today have not really been thought through.

I would far rather that the hon. Lady recognised that the Government are taking relevant steps and are making a difference. They are bringing forward the fares review and the Command Paper on the structure of the rail industry that we need to see. I have a feeling that this debate might have been plonked on Opposition Members from above. I know that that happens sometimes—Members do not always choose to have a debate but might be told, “You’re having one.” They have done their best to cobble together a press release but I am afraid that although they get A-plus for effort, they get D-minus for homework. There is a debate to be had, but I am not sure that today’s debate was the one we wanted to be having.

Bus Services

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Thursday 1st December 2011 Westminster Hall

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bayley. The Committee’s inquiry has been one of the more enlightening and intriguing it has embarked upon since I joined it after the election. It certainly brought home to me the fact that buses should be part of total services, and that many people depend on them. In a relatively deprived constituency such as mine, where many people cannot afford a motor car or are not well enough or active enough to drive one, buses are essential. Extracting a definition of a socially necessary journey from some of the commercial operators who appeared before us was frustrating. They squirmed but could not provide an answer. They won the award for worst witnesses of the year so far.

The inquiry enabled me to mull over the Government’s role in bus services. Is it appropriate to expect a Minister in Whitehall to pull a lever, and to raise the quality of services throughout the country? It is an unavoidable truth that local bus services are best controlled by local councils, or some locally accountable body. Ever since the Committee’s first inquiry on economic growth in transport, we have heard talk of new regional bodies that will allow transport decision making closer to the ground. However, we have yet to see anything beyond potential names emerging from the Department, and I would welcome more guidance from the Government on when there might be progress.

The Government’s other role is to set a good example. As the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) said, we had some truly lamentable examples of consultation, and calling some of them consultation was a joke. It was a case of “We’re removing the service, and if the passengers don’t like it, hard luck because we’re doing it anyway.” That is not consultation; that is “get lost” or “get knotted”. Nevertheless, central Government have a role to play.

I was bored one Sunday afternoon, so I started looking at the Government’s official response to the report. I sat at my computer trying to open complicated Excel spreadsheets of statistical data. I am sure it is a marvellous resource if someone has a spare lifetime to get to grips with it. I was intrigued to note that a review is being conducted of what data are being collected. I hope that most of them do not disappear as part of some review. I was struck by a few statistics. I wondered why 77% of Scottish buses have ITSO card readers, but only 18% of buses in English non-metropolitan areas have them. I thought that that was an interesting difference.

I also noted that English non-metropolitan areas have now seen the third annual decline in a row in the number of overall passengers. For the first time, concessionary fare journeys dipped in English non-metropolitan areas over the past year. I know that statistics are not everything. I noted that in Blackpool, passenger journeys had dropped from 16 million five years ago to just 14.5 million in the past year. I know why: we have had major civil engineering works and it has been impossible to get anywhere in the town centre. Statistics can be a little misleading at times and do not always paint the whole picture, but they struck me as interesting examples of some of the trends in bus ridership.

I raise those statistics, but I do not want the Minister to think I oppose what he is doing. I think that what the Government are doing is fair and balanced and reflects where we are as an economy and as a nation within the global economy. There is a healthy dose of localism in what the Minister proposes. I also recognise the Minister’s own deep, personal commitment to buses and to public transport more generally, and I praise him for it. I echo the comments of the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside on the importance of the Competition Commission’s report, which is continually forthcoming. If I believe what I read in my newspapers, I hope it will criticise what seems to be an utterly dysfunctional market in certain parts of the country.

The Minister will not be surprised to learn that I wish to devote the bulk of my remarks to community transport. Rather than re-rehearse my ten-minute rule Bill, which called for the extension of the concessionary fares scheme to community transport, I want to reflect on some of the Government’s responses in the ninth special report. Like the Minister, I share the desire to put community transport on a more sustainable footing, requiring less public subsidy and building on the social enterprise model. In the long-term, that has to be the way ahead.

I welcome the dedicated £10 million fund for community transport. I welcome, too, the efforts of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs with the rural social enterprise fund. However, we must also acknowledge that community transport is not just a rural phenomenon —it matters greatly in urban areas, too. In some ways, for more vulnerable, marginal groups, it matters more in urban areas.

I certainly take the Minister’s point—I assume it is the Minister’s, because it sounded as though he had drafted it—in response to recommendation 13 and the creative imagination that local authorities must apply to circumstances in which they withdraw supported services. Where that is occurring, it makes immense sense for community transport to step in and fill a hole for a relatively small amount of money. I agree with the Minister that that is a sensible and useful way forward for community transport. None the less, I am concerned at the complexity of some of the legislation, which represents a barrier to many volunteers, who get terribly confused, as I continue to do, over section 19 and section 22 services—over who to pay and what to do. It is a technical and complex minefield. I recognise that the Vehicle and Operator Services Agency and traffic commissioners put a lot of effort into trying to guide providers through that minefield, but it is still deeply complex.

At the Community Transport Association’s conference this morning, I heard the Minister’s comments about why he was reluctant to extend concessionary fares to section 19 services. For those who were not there, I will paraphrase his point: it would cause a policy issue to allow those in what is essentially a private members’ organisation, club or society—whatever we want to call it—to have access to a wider concessionary fares scheme. I thought about that over lunch. It strikes me that that is coming at it from the wrong way. Many of those people have to join a dial-a-ride scheme because they cannot access mainstream public transport in the first place. This is perhaps part of a dialogue rather than a direct challenge, but I wonder whether the problem lies more with the Transport Act 1985 and the higher threshold it sets for accessing section 19 services, rather than the reason given not to extend concessionary fare schemes to section 19 services.

I am intrigued—I think that is the correct word—by the Government’s response to the wider issue of concessionary fares. The Department rightly points out that community transport will usually offer a

“more flexible, personal service”,

which could become

“the mode of choice for concessionary pass holders.”

I would not deny that a sudden, rapid overnight expansion of community transport would undoubtedly cause problems for commercially provided and supported services, but I struggle to understand why the provision of a high quality, excellent service that responds to people’s needs should be seen as a problem. I have never been one to believe in levelling down to the lowest common denominator. That is one reason I find myself on the Conservative Benches. I would like other mainstream providers to be encouraged to raise their game rather than be told, “Don’t worry, we are not going to make it too uncomfortable for you. We are going to make sure the community transport lot stay in their box and do not put you to shame.” That would not be terribly helpful.

I understand the Minister’s point about the possible dangers to supported rural bus services, but we must realise, as the report did, that although more people may have concessionary fare cards, they actually have fewer buses on which to use them. That is my underlying concern.

I am thoroughly pleased that the Government have lived up to the pre-election pledges of both parties to protect the concessionary fares scheme. That is entirely right and proper, but we now have to ensure that vulnerable citizens in my and other Members’ constituencies have the services that they need to ensure that they can get to where they need to go. I am not convinced that the mindset of local councils or local commercial providers is such that they understand that vulnerable people need to get to GP surgeries, hospitals and libraries, and that that is where the bus network should go. At the moment, it is a patchwork quilt of constantly changing routes and services that confuses passengers, providers and even Members of Parliament. I ask the Minister to do one thing: hurry up with his consultation toolkit and make sure that passengers are meaningfully involved when local authorities consult on service changes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Maynard]

Will the Minister confirm that it is interesting to note that the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers was fully behind the scheme in the Isle of Wight?

[Norman Baker]

It is important to note that. That is a very relevant point and it leads me on, perhaps, to the points made by the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright). I am sorry that, unlike the Chairman of the Committee, who presented matters fairly and equitably, albeit in a challenging way, he sought to present matters as something of a party political rant. He was keen to say that this was the Government’s fault, but the Government have not cut bus services in Hartlepool—his local council has. Councils up and down the country have not been cutting bus services, and if all the services in Hartlepool have disappeared he needs to take the matter up with his local operator and council.

The picture varies enormously across the country. I am not pretending that it is easy for local councils; it is perfectly true that there are challenges as a consequence of the local government settlement. Cuts have been made across the country in local bus services, particularly in supported ones. The Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock) said, I think, that the Campaign for Better Transport had found that three quarters of local authorities were cutting back on buses. That is unwelcome, but the fact remains that a quarter are not cutting back at all. Perhaps we should look at them for lessons on how they have managed to maintain their bus services rather than cutting everything in sight, which appears to have happened in Hartlepool.

Coastguard Modernisation

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

No.

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

I thank the Minister for his statement, and pay tribute to the great personal effort that I know he has put into visiting every affected coastguard station to ensure that consultation was both open-ended and reasoned. Can he none the less reassure me that when one of a pair of co-ordination centres closes, there will be a structure in place to ensure that local knowledge is transferred between staff and we do not see a sudden cliff-edge changeover?

[Mike Penning]

The closures are planned for March 2015, so there will be no cliff edge. I repeat that, having studied the results of the consultation extremely carefully, we decided to adopt the pair-based system because the current local knowledge of the topography would be retained. When I visited Swansea—and I expect that a Swansea Member will ask a question shortly—the station was closed while I was meeting the staff, and Milford Haven took over the local knowledge. That sort of thing is happening regularly, and it will introduce more resilience to the system.

Aviation Industry

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Donohoe]

I thank hon. Members.

I return to this afternoon’s important subject, which is the future of the UK aviation industry. The aviation sector is vital for the economy, bringing financial benefits both to the UK and to those who serve the airline business. It is also important for the skills and the high-skilled employment that it brings and because of the important growing marketplace that the airline industry is within.

Coupled with that is the importance of the aerospace industry, which is connected to the airline industry in every respect. I have such an interest in the subject because a fairly sizeable chunk of employment in my constituency is based on those two industries. Spirit, which employs more than 1,000 people, is based in my constituency. Goodrich, GE Caledonian and BAE Systems are just a few of the companies that my constituency has within the sector. All are major stakeholders in the future of the aviation industry.

The aviation industry requires the Government to step up their responsibilities to provide a political framework to allow the sector to grow sustainably, integrated with other transport modes, which are equally important. We were involved in a few discussions just a number of weeks ago, and I see the hon. Member for Blackpool South—

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

North.

[Mr Donohoe]

Sorry; I will always get that wrong. I see the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) in his place this afternoon. He has taken the lead on the case regarding High Speed 2, which is part of the overall package that we have to consider today.

More than any other industry, aviation operates in a global marketplace and needs global solutions to avoid market distortions that would prejudice against UK industry. In that respect, it would be dangerous for the UK to add or continue with unilateral actions that would serve only further to drive UK industries abroad, along with the financial and skills benefits they are associated with.

About 15,000 jobs a year are at stake unless the UK finds way to increase aviation capacity in the south-east. The management at Gatwick airport has argued in a submission to the Department for Transport that that is of great importance to its airport, as well as to the whole country. The UK stands to lose between £20 billion and £47 billion of benefits over 30 to 50 years unless the Government reconsider the current stance of no expansion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr Donohoe) on securing the debate. I shall try to be quick, because I know other hon. Members want to speak, so this will be high speed, if not on high rail, which will make a nice change.

I welcome the progress that the Government are making on aviation policy. They are taking steps in the right direction. It is not fast enough for me or many in the industry, but perhaps we need to learn patience. Good, evidence-based policy is not one of Jamie’s five-minute meals. It needs good-quality evidence, and if we do not form policy based on evidence, rather than on prejudice, it is plain stupid. I am not here to boost Blackpool airport, although it is a wonderful airport to fly into and see the wonders of the Fylde coast. I do not even want to waffle on about air passenger duty. I do not want to tempt the Minister down a route that she probably does not want to go down, given that she is not a Treasury Minister. I do not even want to bang on about a third runway at Heathrow, because I think that is a stable door that was shut long ago, unfortunately.

We must discuss a more fundamental question: what does UK plc need from our aviation industry? What do we actually need? Hidden, buried away like a nugget of gold within the scoping document, are two fundamental questions that the Government must consider. What are the benefits of maintaining a hub airport in the UK? And how important are transit and transfer passengers to the UK economy? Those things may seem self-evident. How could anyone dispute them? Yet a fortnight ago I met a commercial director for a regional airport, who said, “There is no such thing as a hub airport. There is no Government definition of one, so they don’t exist. So we don’t need a hub airport any more.” That struck me as the most illogical and ludicrous thing one could possibly argue, but none the less he tried. I would prefer to focus on not Boris island but Boryspil airport, which, for those who do not know, is the main airport for the city of Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. That is a classic example of an emerging market destination, which is economically crucial, and to which services from the UK are not sufficiently good. Yet all the aviation policy that we seem to be able to focus on is some future airport in the Thames estuary. We need to focus on the needs of the UK economy—of UK plc—here and now.

I welcome the work that I know the Minister is doing to make Heathrow and the other south-east airports function better, so that we get bang for our buck and extract the maximum from the capacity that we already have. I want London to be surrounded by a string of pearls in the form of excellent, functioning airports. One of them, however, cannot be a pearl but must be a diamond—the hub airport. To understand why, we must understand the definition of a hub airport, and why it matters to the economy. Transfer passengers do not exist merely for the benefit of Starbucks. The Frontier Economics foundation recently issued a report showing that there are at least 13 flights to emerging market destinations in which more than half the passengers are transfer passengers, who did not start their journeys at Heathrow. The more that we squeeze the short-haul flights that the hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) referred to, the harder it will be to sustain flights to emerging market economies, because we will not have the transfer passengers, which is a grave concern.

I confess that a few months ago I wondered whether the UK really needed a hub airport. The Japanese Transport Minister once famously said that Incheon in South Korea was now Japan’s hub. I know that for many of my constituents Schiphol or Charles de Gaulle is essentially their hub airport. I began to think, “Can the UK survive without a hub airport? Can’t we just fly to Paris or Amsterdam?” However, the Frontier Economics report makes the fundamental case why we cannot do that. It is explicit about the amount of trade that we are losing as a consequence of having poorer connectivity with the emerging market economies. It is a question of not only the number of people flying through Heathrow, but where they are going. The hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton rightly made the point that Heathrow’s number of destinations is gradually dropping. In the past five years, it has decreased from, I think, 227 to 180. Over the same five years, the number of destinations reached from the main competitor hubs in Europe has increased.

There is clearly a case to be made that Heathrow is entering a period of consolidation. It may be getting more passengers, but they are going to fewer places, and, in the cycle, that is usually the beginning of the end of an airport’s hub status. That is what happened to New York about 20 years ago, when the destinations started to drop off and it lost its hub status. While I fully expect that in the coming 20 years Heathrow will remain England’s major international gateway, I have concerns whether it will retain its hub status. Hon. Members may ask whether that matters. New York no longer has a hub airport, but it remains a world city. I question whether we—UK plc—can afford to sacrifice the economic benefits that come from a vibrant, well-connected hub airport, which I think is fundamental.

[Mary Macleod]

Does my hon. Friend realise that London has 92 flights a week to China, whereas Paris has 73 and Frankfurt 69? We have good connectivity with China, one of the most important growing economies. Surely the issue is about working with businesses in China and elsewhere to find out their requirements. Has he had any correspondence with businesses there to find out whether they require additional flights to Heathrow and London?

[Paul Maynard]

I thank my hon. Friend for that useful intervention. Of course the main reason, historically, for our having far more flights to China is our historic tie to Hong Kong. The destinations that we serve are Beijing and Shanghai, and there are more than 3,000 seats a week going to Hong Kong. I think that Frankfurt serves five destinations and Paris four. We dominate on the Hong Kong routes, but we underperform in relation to all the other top 10 Chinese cities. Of course, economic growth in China is happening not in Hong Kong but in cities that most of us have probably never heard of—the likes of Chengdu and Dongguan, which no one is yet serving. Far more than focusing just on the number of people who are flying and the routes they are flying on, we must think about connectivity. Are we serving the places where the economic growth is?

I make a plea to the Government. I welcome what they are doing to make the airports around London and the south-east more suited to improvements in the passenger experience, but I ask that we should not overlook the benefits that can be provided by an active, well-maintained and well-funded hub airport, which works well and connects to the places that UK plc needs to be connected to for growth. That needs to be a fundamental part of our aviation strategy.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Thursday 10th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

We are aware of the congestion at the toll, but most of that is caused by the barriers. An archaic method of collecting tolls is in place. We will introduce free-flow tolling as soon as we can. A lot of construction work needs to be done but, at the end of the day, the biggest problem is that the M25 is such a success we need to have another crossing over the Thames.

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

5. What plans she has for future funding for railway stations.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mrs Theresa Villiers)]

The comprehensive spending review secured funding for a range of major station improvements to be delivered over the next few years, including Reading, Birmingham New Street, Blackfriars and London Bridge. Proposals for a number of new stations are under consideration for support from local transport funds. Further funding for station improvements over the 2014-2019 period will be considered as part of the high level output specification process. Additionally, one of the goals of our franchise reform is to encourage more train operator investment in railways including in stations.

[Paul Maynard]

Many hon. Members will have admired St Pancras station as an example of what a station can be and will have wished that their own nearest mainline stations lived up to that standard. I welcome the Government’s move to transfer responsibility for stations from Network Rail to franchise holders, yet the fact that many of the investments required in mainline stations cannot be recouped in the course of one single franchise period means that operators are disincentivised from making those investments. Will the Minister ensure that the final invitation to tender for the west coast main line issued in the new year addresses that anomaly?

[Mrs Villiers]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. I assure him that there is always space for taxpayer funding for bigger-scale station upgrades. In terms of encouraging train operators to invest in station improvements, I also agree that we need to find ways to encourage them to invest in long-term projects that may have a pay-back period beyond the end of the franchise. One of the ways we are addressing that is with longer franchises, but we are also working carefully on how we improve the mechanisms for delivering a residual value at the end of the franchise for just the sort of investments he wants to see.

High-Speed Rail

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2011 Westminster Hall

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Dorries, for what I think is the first time.

Members may wonder why we are having yet another debate on High Speed 2. In fact, we are not; we are having a debate on high-speed rail in the north. I requested this debate partly because when we discussed the issue in the main Chamber a couple of weeks ago, I felt that there were not enough contributions from the north, and I wanted to rebalance the equation. I do not want to debate the merits of HS2 today, and I do not really want to talk about anything south of Birmingham if I can help it. I want the debate to focus on the north, and I do not intend to stop at the Scottish border. I deliberately used the word “north” to encourage Scottish Members to participate in the debate.

I will try to make clear the terms of the debate, and also state what the debate is not. I used the phrase “high-speed rail in the north” to ensure that the debate was not about HS2—which to my mind is ultra high speed—but about high-speed rail as a concept. Equally, I make a plea for a slightly more consensual style, compared to previous debates. New infrastructure projects understandably excite high passions, but wandering into Prime Minister’s questions wearing a colourful badge that cannot be read by anyone watching TV, let alone other Members, does not benefit either set of arguments, and diminishes the dignity of the House. That does not mean, however, that we have to accept a mushy consensus on infrastructure projects. I accept that we will disagree, but I hope that we can do so in a polite and measured way.

If I were given billions of pounds to spend on transport in the north of England, would I immediately reach for high-speed rail links to London? Perhaps not. When “The Northern Way” transport compact first got going in 2006-07, it did not mention high-speed rail because that was simply not on the agenda. It focused on improved connectivity in the north of England, rather than between the north and the south, and it highlighted the importance of the trans-Pennine corridor. That importance was emphasised by the Government’s switch from the S-route to the Y-route, together with the issue of what to do with the Woodhead tunnels. I would also welcome a little reassurance from the Minister on the northern hub. Even if it is to be delivered in parts, will the sum of those parts still equal the whole of the vision? I trust that it will.

We must consider how we differ from our European counterparts. If I think of the Liverpool-Manchester metropolis, it rather reminds me of the Rhine-Ruhrgebiet in Germany, another heavily industrialised urban area. One difference, however, between this country and the Rhine-Ruhr area is the comparatively poor transport links found in our metropolises. We can learn a lot just by looking at Germany for a change.

I have no shortage of material for this debate, and although I could probably speak for an hour and a half without trying, I promise that I have no intention of doing so. I will try to take a step back and look at some of the more thematic policy issues and the effect that a decision to proceed with any form of high-speed rail north of Birmingham will have on Government policy making. I do not want to see half-baked solutions that run to other people’s political timetables.

Quality of policy making is crucial; it is what I came into politics to try to improve, and no matter what party is in power, I think that the quality and detail of public policy making in this country is bad. The quality of our understanding of transport in the north of England is, to my mind, entirely due to work by “The Northern Way” over the past five years, and I mourn its loss greatly. I do not blame the Government entirely for that loss, and it is a shame that many of the local actors who had the chance to fund “The Northern Way” after the closure of the regional development agencies did not take the opportunity to do so. The loss of “The Northern Way” has created a fundamental problem, because we have lost the pan-northern perspective and the ability to weigh up differing priorities in Yorkshire, the north-west and the north-east. We are seeing a retreat back to lists of regional priorities, with Manchester wanting one thing, Liverpool another, and Leeds something else, and there is no body that tries to pull those things together and says, “Your proposal is slightly better than that one.” We need some form of co-ordinating body that would allow such prioritisation.

I participated in the Transport Committee inquiry into high-speed rail—I assure hon. Members that it was a mammoth undertaking, and I do not think that my life will ever be the same—so I know how much controversy there has been not only over the detail of the route, but about which field the line will or will not go through, how noisy or quiet it will be, how big this will be and how small that will be. We have perhaps never seen such controversy over a single infrastructure project. The debate was based on the single premise—the single fallacy—that merely building infrastructure automatically promotes economic growth. It does not. It is not a case of “Build it and they will come”; we need look only at so-called Stratford International station to know that. Stratford International station in east London is remarkable in having no international train services—most impressive. It is a classic example of the sort of white elephant that those of us who are concerned about levels of public expenditure do not wish to see.

The Department for Transport’s promotion of high-speed rail has focused on the three Ls—Lille, Lyon and Lleida—as examples of how investment in high-speed rail in Europe has brought economic growth to the surrounding areas. However, for every city named by the DFT, the anti-high-speed rail campaign provides an alternative, and says that high-speed rail makes no difference at all, is a total waste of money and that we should not bother. At the end, it is rather like the Eurovision song contest on a city basis, with “nul points for Zaragoza,” and “dix points for Brussels.” That is not informative, and what matters is not so much the location, the name of the city or how good its PR effort is, but what the local government in the area chooses to do in response to hearing that it will get a high-speed rail link. That critical variable is often overlooked in the debate.

In evidence to the Transport Committee, Professor Tomaney from Newcastle university stated:

“The stations themselves do not, on their own, provide those development opportunities. What is required is much larger-scale economic development planning.”

Hon. Members may think that I, a Conservative, would hide my head under the desk at that statement—“How could he possibly suggest economic planning? What an appalling thing to do!”—but it is more subtle than that. If we know that a high-speed rail link will go to the centre of Manchester, we have to deal not only with issues of dispersal, an integrated transport system and whether the buses and suburban trains interlink, but wider policy issues about housing and jobs, and schools policy in particular, which is often overlooked in transport planning. We should look at the wider policy, not just at issues of transport, and as the Government move forward and consider how to progress with high-speed rail, they must look at more than just transport.

There are risks, and it is silly to pretend that high-speed rail will be only a good thing and that nothing bad could ever happen. Professor Roger Vickerman also gave evidence to the Transport Committee, and pointed out that although the arrival of the TGV in Lyon and Lille benefited those two cities, it also sucked in some of the economic activity from towns in their immediate peripheries. Unless the correct decisions are taken locally, high-speed rail could arrive in one city and cause a diminution in economic activity in a neighbouring city, suburb or minor area. That is a possibility, but certainly not a given. There are no givens in this debate because, as I say, the situation depends entirely on the decision making at local and regional level. Whether someone is a supporter or a detractor—a friend or foe—of high-speed rail, they have to agree that that must be part of the debate, and I argue strongly that it has been absent from the debate so far.

[Mr John Leech (Manchester, Withington) (LD)]

As a fellow member of the Transport Committee I, too, was on the visit to which the hon. Gentleman refers. Although we heard that argument made in Lille, in Frankfurt we heard a counter-argument: the Frankfurt to Cologne line had a significant impact in improving the whole region, not just the two places where there was a station. People argued strongly in Frankfurt that there was a benefit for the whole region between those two areas.

[Paul Maynard]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. He is correct and almost makes my point for me: it is horses for courses. We can all point to examples of high-speed rail achieving one thing in one area and a different thing in another. The most interesting aspect of the German example that he points to is that Frankfurt is at the confluence of about four different Länder. It is quite difficult for Frankfurt to have regional planning when, at the level at which that tends to occur, it has about four different bodies to try to liaise with. That again shows the difficulties, but also that if the will is there, the correct decisions can be made that lead to economic growth.

That is perhaps the challenge that we have to face: at what level do we seek to take the decisions? I am firmly of the view that local transport consortiums—or whichever range of acronyms we wish to append to the matter this week—are crucial for moving forward. I would welcome information from the Government on how that is progressing. We can point to Transport for Greater Manchester as a very good example of what can be done. It is interesting and welcome that the differing integrated transport authorities are all moving at what I suggest is a slightly different pace in their own particular direction. Standardisation is being lost, and there is, I think, more local sensibility. That can only be a good thing, but it still does not resolve the problem that I shall refer to, with apologies to the hon. Member for West Lancashire (Rosie Cooper), as the Skelmersdale problem. I mean no disrespect to that fine town.

Skelmersdale is in the travel-to-work area of at least two major conurbations—Manchester and Liverpool—yet it is not in either the Greater Manchester or Merseyside city regions. It is in the district of West Lancashire. That poses a challenge for transport planning, because we seem to have in this country a culture that says, “You are where you are. You are defined by your boundaries, not by your economic patterns or what actually happens in an area.” We also seem to have an unwritten rule that says, “You can only be in one club at any one time. You can’t be in both the Greater Manchester area and the Merseyside area at the same time. Heaven forfend!” That has consequences, as I hope the hon. Lady would agree, for her constituents, in terms of improving transport links to both the main areas.

[Rosie Cooper (West Lancashire) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman encapsulates the problem that my constituents have. The new town of Skelmersdale is 50 years old this year. It has no railway station and very poor transport links, and it is therefore isolated. If we could extend the development of high-speed rail through the north-west, that would bring economic benefits right round, not just to the Skelmersdale part of my constituency, but to the Ormskirk and Burscough areas, with the Burscough curves joining lines up to Preston. It is nonsense that in the 21st century we should be caught between two stools. We have no railway station and no transport links, and are therefore losing out on a huge economic benefit.

[Paul Maynard]

I thank the hon. Lady for that informative intervention. I know that there is no shortage of transport proposals in West Lancashire. She has not even mentioned the Ormskirk bypass yet. We could go on and on, I am sure.

To my mind, city regions have the best potential. I know that potentially they are also controversial. I am sure that many people would not want a return to Merseyside. However, I welcome the proposals from Lord Heseltine and Terry Leahy; if we are to have elected mayors in our great cities, they probably need to cover more than just the council of that name.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

As a proud Merseysider, I have to correct the hon. Gentleman and tell him that Merseyside still exists, certainly in transport terms. One of the important things that he is telling us is that interconnectivity between city regions that cover places such as Skelmersdale, and from Wirral to north Wales, is among the most important factors. There is already some good practice on the ground, certainly in Merseyside, in that respect. Is his point that we should deal with the reality of people’s lives, rather than having arbitrary decisions made in Whitehall about what councils do or do not exist?

[Nadine Dorries (in the Chair)]

Order. I ask hon. Members to keep to the substantive issue of the debate when making interventions.

[Paul Maynard]

I agree entirely with the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) that this should be about people’s lives. Let us imagine that high-speed rail is coming to Liverpool. That will have an impact on the lives of people outside the former Merseyside as well as inside it, whether they are in Cheshire, Halton, Skelmersdale or wherever, and we have to respond to that.

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

I would like to turn the focus slightly away from Lancashire and Merseyside for a second. The hon. Gentleman is making a very powerful argument for the importance of local networks and making the most of high-speed rail. That applies in Scotland as well. Does he agree that it is important that a decision and commitment is made at an early stage that the routes will run to Glasgow and Edinburgh, not just because that will benefit our areas but because it will bring particular added value to communities further south, which will gain from the extra business that the extension to Edinburgh and Glasgow will bring to communities all along the line?

[Paul Maynard]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. That is precisely why I used the phrase “high-speed rail in the north”—because I did mean north as far as Scotland, and not just to the Scottish border. As I said, we seem to spend a lot of time trading cases of where high-speed rail has worked and where it has not. I have tried to ban the word “transformative” from my lexicon, because I have got so bored of hearing people tell me that high-speed rail will be transformative. I am not quite sure in what way or with what evidence—they just like to say it because it sounds good.

[Mr Brian H. Donohoe (Central Ayrshire) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate, because it is on an issue that we have been talking about, but that there has not been much action around. When he talks about local areas, does he really mean that? I ask because I think that the programme will never take off unless there is a national planning committee that can oversee everything about the idea.

[Paul Maynard]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I spent an hour at lunchtime trying to work out whether I was a Liberal or not. I was reading the yellow book from 1928, called “Our Industrial Future”, which recommended precisely what he has referred to—a national infrastructure planning commission that would take the decisions. That is all well and good, but I come from a different political tradition. I discovered that I was a Conservative after all. The reason why I am talking so much about local decision making is that for high-speed rail to have the impact that we all want it to have—in particular, for the rebalancing of the economy that the Government so value—there are decisions that will have to be taken at local level. My concern is that if we do not think about that now, it will not happen, so I hear what the hon. Gentleman says, but the tenor of my remarks is designed to draw attention to where we need better local decision making, and where the DFT needs to factor local priorities into its planning.

I will try to draw my remarks to a close, because I have been going on for almost 20 minutes. In particular, I would like the Government to convene something analogous to “The Northern Way”, be it a ministerial committee for transport in the north of England, an advisory group or whatever. It should be something that will bring together all the different voices in the north for the purposes of understanding and reprioritising. A large number of projects have been proposed, with varying cost-benefit ratios that we have all looked at and analysed to the nth degree. We need some way of working out what the pan-northern priorities are. At the moment, I am concerned that that will not occur, so I hope that the Minister can reassure me on that key point.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)]

Thank you, Ms Dorries. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship.

I add my congratulations to the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) on securing what has been an excellent debate, with worthwhile contributions from all parties, including an interesting contribution from the hon. Gentleman himself. He made many good points. He also spoke about the need for an all-party consensus on this issue and today he has spoken, if I may say so, like a one-man all-party consensus. He said that even today he has searched his soul and he remains a Conservative, and that is fine. However, in bemoaning the loss of the regional development agencies and the Northern Way, he is speaking like a Labour Member.

[Paul Maynard]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[John Woodcock]

I will of course give way to the hon. Gentleman, but before I do so I will just add that, in castigating his own Government, he is acting like a Liberal Democrat.

[Paul Maynard]

For the avoidance of doubt, I am fully behind the decision to abolish the regional development agencies.

[John Woodcock]

If the hon. Gentleman says so, that is fine. How he will get on with his colleagues after today I do not know, but whenever he puts forward sensible proposals, we will work constructively with him to further shared objectives, if he is willing to do so.

The hon. Gentleman made some important points about the northern hub, but Opposition Members believe that it is important to guard against letting the Government off and facilitating them by easing up on lobbying about delivering the project in parts and effectively leaving sections of the northern hub on the shelf.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Woodcock]

I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman has been in the House over the past couple of weeks for the important Back-Bench debate on high-speed rail, in which we set out with crystal clarity our support for the project. We were absolutely right to look at the project again in Opposition because it is a major one and will require substantial and sustained investment. We have concluded that we will back the Government, and try to strengthen their resolve when we think they are not giving enough of a commitment to the north.

[Paul Maynard]

I am sorry to have to intervene yet again. On Monday, the hon. Gentleman’s party announced support for a version of HS2 that would go through Heathrow and up the M40, which was the model that the Conservative party proposed pre-election, so can he confirm that he is not now supporting the Government model?

[John Woodcock]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point and I want to get on to it. I hope that I can now get an opportunity to do so.

We believe that the north of England and Scotland, indeed the whole UK, deserve a proper commitment from the Government to a new high-speed line running right up to Manchester and Leeds. Many Members on both sides have made that point today, and I hope that they will support us in agreeing that failure by the Government to legislate for that in one go leaves a question mark over their commitment to jobs and growth in the north. We urge the Government to reconsider, and I hope that the Minister will come back having done so.

The first stage of High Speed 2, as far as Birmingham, is vital transport infrastructure. It relieves the already mentioned congestion and overcapacity on the main line from Euston and cuts journey times to the west midlands significantly. It provides new capacity to shift freight on to rail, and could provide—from the outset, Opposition Members hope—fast links to Heathrow airport from across the country. On that point—as it was raised—the Minister was quoted as saying that our alternative suggestion was unhelpful.

Given the strength of our support for the overall scheme and the widespread unease about the current route, which is shared by many Government Members, I hope that the Minister will make clear what she really thinks in her closing remarks. Does she recognise that linking directly to Heathrow would strengthen the project because it would be cheaper overall than building the proposed route with a separate spur, it would increase the opportunity to lever in private investment in a way that the Old Oak Common proposal does not, and it would generate a complementary benefit for Heathrow by providing a rail substitute for short-haul flights, thereby releasing capacity, and that it is therefore worthy of serious consideration?

The second stages of HS2 beyond the west midlands to Manchester and Leeds would provide benefits that dwarf those of the first stage. The hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys does not like the word “transformative”, but this project could redraw the economic geography of the UK and that is why there is such wide-ranging support for the stages beyond Birmingham, not only from Members, as demonstrated today, but from business groups and local authorities across the north. Once completed, HS2 would bring Leeds and Manchester within 80 minutes of London and 96 minutes of Liverpool. In addition to the tens of thousands of extra jobs, it would create new businesses, new investment, a modal shift from domestic air to rail, more reliable journeys, more frequent trains and more seats, and God knows we need that on the line. A clearer commitment now to the extension beyond Birmingham, would make the business case for HS2 stronger and private sector investment more likely and secure valuable political and business support across the north.

There has been no shortage of warm words from Ministers in recent months, but we need a commitment to one hybrid Bill. There is no need to delay getting spades into the ground on stage one if the Government decide to re-consult and put the route to the north in the Bill.

High Speed 2

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Thursday 13th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of High Speed 2.

I am delighted to have the opportunity to open the debate, and I am particularly grateful to all the Members —in all parts of the House and on all sides of the debate —who have turned up to participate. It is an incredibly important debate, because it involves £32 billion of taxpayers’ money. I am delighted to see that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport is not present, because, being an eternal optimist, I believe that he is delaying his decision until December—as he certainly should—and is keen to listen to the debate as it progresses. I know that not just you, Mr Speaker, but many right hon. and hon. Members have taken a great interest in this subject. Let me mention in particular my hon. Friends the Members for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) and for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright).

It is fashionable for those who oppose HS2 to be dismissed as nimbys. Let me make it clear that I am here today not just as a concerned constituency MP but as someone with 25 years of experience in finance, including project finance, and that I am determined to defend the taxpayer against what I consider to be an unjustifiable and eye-wateringly expensive project. If the route went from Truro to Paddington, or from Leeds to Edinburgh, I would still be here today defending the taxpayer.

When I first heard about HS2 I thought it was a superb idea, but 18 months later all the proposed benefits have fallen away one by one, and there is no hard evidence that spending £32 billion can truly be justified. For instance, there is no evidence that this project will solve the north-south divide. In fact, there is plenty of evidence from the experience in France and Germany, and from our own HS1, that high-speed trains can suck development out of the regions and into the major cities.

I also have an intuitive concern about the point-to-point nature of the project. The north is not a place; it is a region. Those close to the terminals will benefit of course, but it is unclear how people outside those areas can directly benefit. I recently spoke to my former constituency chairman in the Knowsley South seat, which I contested in 2005, and his view is that Knowsley South will end up paying its share of the cost of this project but will get little, if any, benefit.

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

The north is not a region. It is made up of three regions—the north-west, Yorkshire and Humber and the north-east—all of which have their own identities, which I hope my hon. Friend will respect.

[Andrea Leadsom]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point, and I certainly do respect the right of people in the north to economic regeneration. I am speaking as much for them as I am for people in Cornwall and the Isle of Wight when I say that £32 billion spent on this project is the wrong use of taxpayers’ money.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con)]

It is a great honour and pleasure to speak in this debate, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) on securing it. She has allowed everybody who has a point of view the chance to make their case, expose the arguments of the other side and put forward their own.

In the last Parliament I was fortunate enough, along with the Minister of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Mrs Villiers), who is in her place, to be part of the shadow transport team who were the first authors of a major high-speed rail debate, and indeed of a high-speed rail policy.

The hon. Member for Coventry North West (Mr Robinson) is absolutely right that there is a principled case for opposition to the scheme. My constituents are affected, as are those of the right hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson). What is not a principled position, however, is to say that there is no economic, environmental, financial or travel case for high-speed rail. There clearly is a case, although its merits might differ according to differing points of view.

I have read both the rail package 2 study and the “A Better Railway for Britain” study, the proposals in which are often referred to as an alternative to high-speed rail. I shall briefly examine—because I want to move on to the positives, rather than the negatives—the proposals in the latter study for overcoming the capacity issues on the west coast main line. It proposes to introduce 12 car trains, grade-separated junctions and an additional track south of Nuneaton. It claims that the costs, at best, would be £2.06 billion, but it takes that figure from another, flawed document. I do not know whether those who produced the study have ever spoken to any of the rail operators, but it will be extremely difficult to integrate 12 cars into 11-car sets.

[Paul Maynard]

Does my hon. Friend agree that rail package 2 plus and RP2 both admit that they do not tackle the peak-hour demand, which is the crucial concern of many of us travelling on the west coast main line?

[Stephen Hammond]

Absolutely. However, so much in “A Better Railway for Britain” is mere assertion. The good points, though, are like that television programme from so long ago, “Not Only… But Also”. Not only do we need to do the things mentioned in RP2, but also we need high-speed rail. The case for high-speed rail is clear. It revolves primarily around capacity. Official sources say that the west coast main line will be full by 2020, although some say 2026, while unofficial sources say 2015. The question, then, is about how we add capacity. We either build a classic new line or we build one that uses some of the new techniques and signalling. The latter is called high-speed rail.

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) on securing the first debate on high-speed rail to be held in the Chamber. This is, however, the fourth debate that we have had on the subject since the election. We debated it in Westminster Hall on 23 November, 31 March and 13 July, so we have discussed it every four months or so. I notice that the period between debates is becoming ever shorter, so by the time HS2 delivers any value, we might be debating it every day.

Contrary to certain assumptions, I am the only Buckinghamshire MP whose constituency is not affected by the high-speed rail proposal. I know that your constituency is affected by it, Mr Speaker, and that your constituents have very strong views and that you submitted a substantial response to the consultation. The Secretary of State for Wales, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan), responded robustly to the consultation on behalf of her constituents, delivering seven files of objections and evidence against HS2, which will cut a deep scar through the middle of the area of outstanding natural beauty in which her constituency sits. The Minister for Europe, my right hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr Lidington), and the Attorney-General, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), were present earlier, and I know that their constituents are implacably opposed to HS2. Many other members of the Government also have objections, including the Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty's Treasury, my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant), who also has strong views.

Although my constituents are not directly affected, they oppose HS2 on a number of grounds, but before I go on to explain my opposition, I wish to welcome the Government’s noble intentions. Whether in seeking the rejuvenation of the economy, the revitalisation of the north or the protection of the environment, or in trying to attract international inward investment, their intentions are indeed noble, but I regret to say that I do not support the means by which they seek to meet those ends.

The Secretary of State reflected on capacity, carbon and international competition in his evidence to the Transport Committee. On the question of the economics, as we have already learned in this debate, it is possible to refer to the titles and authors of reports both for and against the proposal. I am afraid that for every economist who comes down on one side of the debate, there will always be another economist on the other side. The Economist magazine came out against HS2, and when I put that to the Secretary of State, he was quick to rebut it and explain that he was about to write a letter.

The truth is that this project is awash with entrepreneurial risk. It is impossible to get hold of any hard facts showing whether it is a good idea. There is certainly an economic case, but I am afraid that it is ethereal: the moment we grasp it, it seems to disappear.

[Paul Maynard]

My hon. Friend claims that there is no economic case, but does he recognise that there may be a strategic case?

[Steve Baker]

I enjoy serving on the Transport Committee with my hon. Friend, but I am not saying there is no economic case; rather, I am saying that we cannot nail down that case because of the entrepreneurial risk. In my view, when very large sums of capital are being allocated in an environment of entrepreneurial risk, entrepreneurs should bear that entrepreneurial risk.

I asked an international investor, “What do you think of HS2?” The answer was, “It would be wonderful to arrive fresh and relaxed in no time at all.” I then asked, “Would you invest in it?” The response now was, “That’s unfair. Of course I wouldn’t invest in it.” The market would not deliver high-speed rail, and that would be a market success, because to do so would be a misallocation of capital.

I put it to the Secretary of State that this project would socialise risk and privatise profit. He explained that that was to be expected, and we had to be realistic about it. I do not share that sense of “realism” on that point; I think that in reality this will be loss-making, in any commercial sense of the term. The whole point of loss is that it directs entrepreneurs to do something else with their capital, because if they are making a loss they are destroying value, not creating it.

I shall now deal with the carbon implications of this line. Something profound is going on in relation to carbon. The Secretary of State talked about the need to keep going until we were absolutely sure that we would decarbonise the roads. There is a vision at the heart of HS2 that we have not yet fully grasped. Given that I have 30 seconds available to me, and others wish to speak, I shall just refer to a letter that I sent shortly after I arrived in this place. I said that the Government could not afford high-speed rail, that they would not be able to afford it, that it would be a disaster if they did this—my basis for saying that was David Myddelton’s book “They Meant Well: Government Project Disasters” —and that the Government should not do it in any event, because it should be left to entrepreneurs. Nothing that I heard during the Select Committee on Transport inquiry has changed my mind.

Public Transport (Disabled Access)

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Wednesday 12th October 2011 Westminster Hall

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. I congratulate the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) on a compelling and powerful speech, even if I did not quite agree with everything that she said—but such is life.

I do not wish to pre-empt my ten-minute rule Bill next Tuesday, which I recommend to everyone, but I have a few preliminary comments. All in the Chamber know how much the concessionary fares are valued by our constituents, even if we tend to argue about them at election time. One particular imbalance, however, needs to be addressed. Able-bodied pensioners who can use the buses get the concessionary fare, but disabled pensioners who cannot use the buses and have to rely on dial-a-ride services, demand-responsive services or other community transport must pay their own way. That seems to me to be a glaring imbalance, which no doubt runs contrary to the spirit of the legislation when introduced by the Labour party—none the less, an imbalance.

I understand that certain councils choose to provide free transport for the disabled, but not every council does. With the increasing budgetary pressures, I fear that fewer and fewer will. The imbalance seems not only unfair but contrary to the spirit of equality and of human dignity. However, I realise that a spending commitment would be involved, which is no doubt frowned upon. To many of the pensioners who contact me and say, “I don’t need the card; I am wealthy enough to pay myself,” I make the point that people can always pay their own way—no one is forcing them to have a card. Equally, however, my constituents in Blackpool do not deserve to be treated differently from my constituents in Wyre. Everyone should have the same right to free transport and free travel, and any hon. Member who wants to support my Bill, may add their name after the debate.

One of the great honours of being an MP is the opportunity to chair the all-party group on young disabled people. Its secretariat is wonderfully provided by the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign. I am not a great fan of the all-party group system as a whole because too many strike me as unnecessary vanity projects, or an excuse to visit obscure countries that I have never heard of. However, when I was approached, I said that I would be the chairman on one condition—that the group is meaningful. I wanted outcomes, processes and reports. I did not want to sit around just talking about the problems; I wanted to hear what we could do about them. That is certainly what I got.

Report No. 1 of the “Inclusion Now” series is called “End of the Line”. Leaving aside the fact that that was also the title of the Conservative party’s report on coastal towns when in opposition and that that is now in the Government’s bottom drawer, I welcome it because it explains what happens to many disabled people. They may want to get off at a station, but when they arrive no one is there to help them, and they may go to the end of the line, which is often many stations away, because no one will help them to get off.

The report was followed by a public hearing of the all-party group to which we invited numerous transport providers. At the start of the meeting, I said that I did not want negativity, and to hear just the bad. As the hon. Member for Wigan said, we have made strides, and if we tell train, bus and taxi companies only what they are doing wrong, they will not be encouraged to fix what is wrong.

Some dreadful cases came to light. Buses pulled away sharply with wheelchairs going everywhere, and passengers with imbalance issues were sent flying. The assisted passenger registration service limits people’s spontaneity because they must give 24 hours’ notice. If I had to give 24 hours’ notice of where I wanted to go, I am not sure that I could live my life as it is.

The hon. Lady referred to accessibility issues at stations. I know that many of the buildings are old—they have been around for a long time—but with better creativity and a bit of thought, I am sure that solutions could be found. Perhaps the most controversial issue was staff awareness and individual members of staff who did not meet the standards expected by their own company. That is a difficult issue. Many people think that such members of staff just need more training. I take a slightly more libertarian view, because we cannot control what occurs in people’s minds. I would love to make them all think as they should think, but that cannot happen. However, every disabled person who suffers should have the confidence to enter the complaints process knowing that they will be listened to, and knowing that they will not be dismissed.

We cannot have passengers being left on trains, and we cannot have staff members ignoring them at stations. We cannot have that attitude, but we must recognise that there is a problem because of the age of many of our trains, buses and so on. I often travel by train into Manchester from Preston on what is essentially a bus on wheels. I suspect that it is older than me. It is unrealistic to expect it to have all the knobs and flashing buttons that a modern train might have to enable passengers to draw attention to the fact that a disabled passenger may be trying to get off. Such technology might ease the problems for staff also.

I pay tribute to National Express, which does an excellent job in providing for disabled people. There are issues about the Government’s funding of coach services that might threaten some of the subsidies, but I had better not go there. However, I have asked National Express why it does not introduce a 50% reduction card. If it has so many disabled passengers, I am sure it will keep them if it introduces a card under its own steam.

The hon. Lady was critical of the abolition of the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee, but I do not share that criticism. We are having a quango cull, with many worthy bodies disappearing, but Equality 2025, which is based at the Home Office, will absorb its responsibilities, and a wider equality framework may be more effective at achieving the goals that she wants.

I do not want negativity, so I shall mention a success from the Trailblazer campaign. Carrie-Ann Fleming, who lives in Kendal, often had to wait an hour at a bus stop for the right disabled-access bus to come along. She thought that that was not good enough, so she launched a campaign and fought really hard. For once, a local council listened to someone complaining about something. That rarely happens, but it did in this case, and the council will alter the timetables to ensure that she can get on a bus without having to wait an hour.

I will close with a plea for human dignity. Some 47% of disabled people experience some form of abuse on public transport, according to Alice Maynard of Scope. She is no relation; I do not know which of us is more relieved about that. Even I have experienced abuse. I take a bus to the station every morning on my way here. At 7 am, I am often a bit groggy and a bit woolly-headed, and I do not always keep my balance when the driver puts his foot down and roars off from the bus stop. I may go flying, and on one occasion I crashed into a business lady who was not very happy about that. I apologised, and explained that my balance is by no means perfect, and that I struggle on buses. She said that I should not be on a bus if I cannot stand up straight. I just said, “I beg your pardon?” I could not believe it, because I have as much right as she does to be on the bus. It is not called able-body transport; it is called public transport. That means that we should all be able to use it, not just the able-bodied.