Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Rachel Maclean and Alexander Stafford

Monday 27th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)]

T5. Home ownership is an important milestone in many of my constituents’ lives. Many have excitedly bought new build homes, particularly on the Harron Homes estate in Wickersley, or the Redmile estate in Aston, only to move in and find major problems that developers are refusing to make good. Does the Secretary of State agree that they should rectify them immediately?

[Rachel Maclean]

That sort of behaviour is completely unacceptable. I thank my hon. Friend for bringing it to our attention. We are committing to providing buyers of new build houses with strong powers of redress. We have legislated to establish the new homes ombudsman scheme in the Building Safety Act 2022, membership of which will be mandatory for developers.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Rachel Maclean and Alexander Stafford

Monday 25th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)]

3. What steps her Department is taking to tackle violence against women and girls.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Rachel Maclean)]

Tackling violence against women and girls is a top priority for this Government. Since publishing our cross-Government tackling violence against women and girls strategy last July, we have launched a communications campaign to challenge perpetrators and to drive rejection of these awful crimes. We have supported the introduction of a new national policing lead and provided more than £27.5 million for 79 local projects to improve women’s safety in public spaces.

[Alexander Stafford]

Violence against women and girls is both horrific and, unfortunately, endemic. It must be stopped. Will my hon. Friend join me in welcoming our plans such as the tackling domestic abuse plan, which, alongside the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, will play a vital role in stamping out these horrific crimes?

[Rachel Maclean]

I thank my hon. Friend for his astute observations and strongly agree that that Bill is absolutely vital as part of our package of measures to respond to violence against women and girls. The House will like to be reminded, no doubt, that it contains measures to ensure that serious criminals, including sex offenders, will be punished more harshly and spend longer in prison. It strengthens management of sex offenders, introduces more electronic tagging, and ends the automatic halfway release from prison for serious and violent sex offenders. It is therefore a shame that Labour Members persist in voting against the Bill. I very much hope they will change their stance at the next opportunity.

Hydrogen Transport

Debate between Rachel Maclean and Alexander Stafford

Thursday 26th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Maclean]

Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am grateful for your guidance on the matter.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley very much indeed; he made an absolutely excellent speech highlighting his vast range of expertise on this important topic, which is based on his prior experience and on his role in the all-party parliamentary group on hydrogen.

As is clear from the points raised not only by my hon. Friend but by my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie) and the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Stephen Flynn), this technology provides a vast and exciting opportunity for our nation. Our world-leading researchers, innovators, engineers and vehicle manufacturers are already putting the UK at the forefront of this new era in transport technology, but we want to keep aiming higher, pushing further and, in particular, harnessing the potential to build back better.

Last week, the Prime Minister set out the 10-point plan for a green industrial revolution, which I am proud to say contained several key transport policies, including £20 million to support the development of cost-effective zero-emission HGVs in the UK; £20 million to help develop clean maritime technology as part of the clean maritime demonstration programme, which will take place at key sites, including Orkney and Teesside; further investment in research and development on the infrastructure upgrades required at UK airports to move to battery and hydrogen aircraft; and £3 million for the recently announced Tees Valley hydrogen transport hub, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley referred.

In the Department for Transport, we intend to build on those announcements through our forthcoming and ambitious transport decarbonisation plan, which will set out how we intend to reduce emissions and deliver transport’s contribution to net zero by 2050. There is little doubt that the compelling case for green hydrogen set out by my hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley has been heard by the Prime Minister and the Department for Transport. It will play a key part in meeting that goal and in helping to decarbonise the wider economy. We are committed to exploring what that role might be.

We are already investing up to £121 million in hydrogen innovation, supporting a range of projects in heating, transport and the production of low carbon hydrogen, with carbon capture utilisation and storage, and electrolysis technologies. Furthermore, our £23 million hydrogen for transport programme is increasing the uptake of fuel-cell electric vehicles and growing the number of publicly accessible hydrogen refuelling stations.

We are already seeing the possibilities of hydrogen being demonstrated right now, often with the help of Government funding. In the maritime sector, for example, a range of exciting projects is taking place: a company in Lowestoft called Windcat Workboats is leading work to develop hydrogen-fuelled zero-emission vessels; and in the Orkney Islands, Government-supported trials are exploring the use of renewably sourced hydrogen to fuel ferries.

Birmingham’s first hydrogen train, the HydroFLEX, has been built by the University of Birmingham and rail company Porterbrook with the support of a £750,000 grant from the Government. In the skies, US start-up ZeroAvia is using a £2.7 million Government investment to develop a hydrogen-fuelled powertrain that is being demonstrated on a small aircraft.

Since 2015, we have also funded £7.4 million through the low emission bus and the ultra low emission bus schemes to provide 62 hydrogen buses and infrastructure. The Prime Minister confirmed our commitment to deliver 4,000 zero-emission buses in his 10-point plan, backed up with £120 million to kick off this programme in 2021. I note that the hon. Member for Aberdeen South has made a clear request for those buses to be in Scotland. No doubt that has been heard. In Northern Ireland, bus company Translink bought a fleet of double-deckers built by Wrightbus which are powered by hydrogen generated from local onshore wind energy.

My hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley rightly poses many challenges. Hydrogen provides us with enormous opportunities, but it also presents us with equally important questions: how do we manufacture it in a sustainable and cost-effective way? How do we enable hydrogen-powered transport technology to scale up and get cheaper? How can we make hydrogen a real and viable option for transport operators? To help answer those and other questions, we are developing a transport hydrogen hub in Tees Valley—the first of many perhaps, as my hon. Friend will be glad to hear. It will support and develop cross-modal applications of hydrogen in transport.

[Alexander Stafford]

Will one of those hubs be in Rother Valley?

[Rachel Maclean]

My hon. Friend will not be surprised to hear that I was expecting that question. I have noted very carefully his desire for Rother Valley to be a hydrogen valley. I will consider his request carefully.

Across Government, we are looking to accelerate the use of hydrogen in transport and its development. We have commissioned a master plan—we are cracking on with this work—which will outline options for hydrogen supply and storage infrastructure and support innovation facilities ahead of going through business case and planning processes in 2021, with a view to tendering industry for the infrastructure build in 2022. I will be happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss the case that he is making in more detail in future.

In closing, I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Rother Valley and for Ynys Môn very much for their continued interest in the role that hydrogen can play to support decarbonisation. I will of course consider carefully the policy asks laid out by my hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley. We have committed to publishing a comprehensive UK hydrogen strategy in early 2021, which will bring together the UK hydrogen story, showcasing activity to date and setting out an action plan for decarbonisation and expansion in the 2020s. Let me assure everyone that hydrogen has a future in transport and in levelling up Rother Valley and the whole of the United Kingdom.

Question put and agreed to.