Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Foord Excerpts

Thursday 10th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)]

One hundred and fifty parishes in Devon wrote to Devon county council last year asking for 20 mph zones, but only six were successful. Those that were not successful were told that they could pursue the measure through so-called “community self-delivery.” My constituents think, “But this is what we pay our council tax for.” Does the Secretary of State understand that?

[Louise Haigh]

I am very grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s question. It is absolutely my position that if local residents want to design and support local measures around speeding and road safety, they should be supported to do so by their local authorities.

Bus Services: England

Richard Foord Excerpts

Tuesday 21st May 2024 Westminster Hall

[Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)]

It is an honour, Ms Vaz, to serve with you in the Chair. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) not only for securing this debate but for sticking up for his constituents by talking about the reasons why they need bus transport.

Let me read from an email that I received in October 2022, shortly after I was first elected to the House. It was a very pleasant read, and begins:

“I would like to invite you to brunch at Greendale Farm cafe on Sunday morning. My treat. The only stipulation is that we both travel there on public transport.”

I was obviously quite keen to take up that invitation, until I looked into it a bit further and found that Donna from Seaton was entirely right to predict that I would not be able to meet her at Greendale Farm café that Sunday morning for her treat. She knew all too well that buses do not travel there on a Sunday morning, because her son had started using that route. He had shown the get-up-and-go to get himself a part-time job over the summer, but unfortunately the bus route was withdrawn by the network provider partway through the tourist season. Donna went on to say:

“The government has a responsibility to provide a public transport system that is fit for purpose and it is failing.”

I will return to Donna at the end of my speech.

Outside London, almost a quarter of bus routes have been cut in the last 10 years, yet buses are the easiest form of public transport to flex. The service can be introduced, improved and expanded very readily, but of course that also means that it can be reduced or withdrawn just as quickly. For many people living in cities or other urban areas, buses are something that they can depend on. They are always there; they can be taken for granted. People living in urban areas probably do not pay too much attention to buses, because they know that if they miss one there will be another one along shortly. However, for the people I represent in rural mid and east Devon, not only are buses an essential part of daily life, but they are so infrequent that even a single delay or no-show can have a huge impact on someone’s journey.

Most of the villages and towns that I represent are served by a bus company called Stagecoach. Although that name might conjure up in the mind the idea of an 18th-century horse and a gilded mail-coach that rapidly gets the post from rural Devon to London, that is simply not the sort of image that bus users in Devon have today. In fact, it more probably brings to mind the potholes that the stagecoaches of the 1800s had to negotiate.

In recent years, bus routes in my constituency have been increasingly scaled back often with very little public consultation. Since I was elected in 2022, we have seen changes to the No. 1 service between Cullompton and Exeter, to the No. 55 service between Tiverton and Exeter, to the No. 9A, which connects Seaton and Exeter, and to several other routes that plug people into our towns, or at least used to.

As a regular bus user, I know it is not uncommon to have to wait up to half an hour after the allotted time for the bus to round the corner. That would not be such a big issue if it were a consistent bus that could be depended on, but it is not. I will give an example from about 18 months ago, when I was waiting at a bus stop in Uffculme to get to the railway station at Tiverton Parkway, to come here. I was waiting with a young lad who told me he was going into Exeter to sit his driving theory test.

We waited as the bus was 15 minutes late, then 20 minutes late. I could see he was getting anxious and jittery about missing his theory test. In the end, I gave up and called a taxi. I knew that Colin round the corner was reliable and would get us there. We gave this young lad a lift and he made it to his theory test on time. It occurred to me that we cannot depend on the bus, and should not have to depend on other bus users to call a taxi to get to an onward connection on time.

As this is a rural area, not only the buses but the trains are infrequent. If we miss our connection, we can be delayed for more than an hour, maybe for two. Young people trying to get to college, for example, are forced either to wait for those long periods or to depend on family, perhaps their parents, to run them into the city. That is affecting people’s working days. There is a material effect, as people have to leave their working from home jobs or perhaps take time out of their working day to run young people to college.

I imagine we might hear from the Minister about the benefits of the bus fare cap. I admit that that has been a welcome measure for regular bus users, but capping fares does not mean much if the bus does not arrive in the first place. A couple of years ago, the west country was right at the bottom of the league table for bus delays for the whole of England. Since then, the appointment of a new managing director, Peter Knight, has been welcome. I have met him several times and he has certainly improved the service from two years ago. He pointed out to me that an area such as Devon has a large population of older people, who have concessionary fares or may travel on free bus passes. That has a material effect on the bus company trying to operate the contract in the area. Making a bus route profitable can be tremendously difficult in an area where lots of people use concessionary fares or pay nothing for the service.

In conclusion, I come back to the original correspondence I had from Donna. She had a practical suggestion, on which I am keen to hear the Minister’s take. She writes:

“The country networks should be divided into routes, and their associated profitability, and then these routes combined into baskets, which group both profitable and non-profitable routes together. The Government determines the timetable”—

or perhaps local authorities could do that—

“The provider must deliver on that timetable, taking the good with the bad.”

Instead, we have the correspondence I received from a Government Minister, Baroness Vere of Norbiton, who wrote to me in October 2022. She said that since deregulation in 1985, bus services have been on a commercial footing, so I should write not to a Minister but to the bus company about my concerns, as that would be the most appropriate action. Listening to the concerns of constituents who cannot get to work on time, I am struck that this is not only a matter for private companies. It also needs to be a concern for Government.

Tamar Crossings

Richard Foord Excerpts

Tuesday 7th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Guy Opperman)]

It is an honour and a privilege to respond to my esteemed colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray). She has once again made the case for her constituents with her usual assiduity, verve and passion, and I salute her for that. This is not the first time she has raised this matter in the House, and nor, I suspect, will it be the last; and it is not the first time I have received correspondence from her. Indeed, I receive it on a virtually bi-monthly basis, but I salute her for that as well. What she is doing is standing up for her constituents, and this is an issue that dates back quite some time.

I shall have to choose my words slightly carefully, for reasons that my hon. Friend will understand. An application for a toll revision, received on 2 May, will be considered by the Secretary of State in accordance with the Transport Charges &c. (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1954, and that will constitute a quasi-judicial decision that I do not want to prejudice in any way. However, I want to give my hon. Friend as many answers as I can, in as much detail as I can. I am also aware that a petition dated 23 March has been presented by, among others, my right hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer), my hon. Friend herself, my hon. Friends the Members for Truro and Falmouth (Cherilyn Mackrory), for South West Devon (Sir Gary Streeter) and for North Cornwall (Scott Mann), and my right hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice). It is to their credit that they have made the case, as indeed have thousands of residents of the local area, and it is to their credit that they have been able to come to the House and be heard in an appropriate way.

[Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Guy Opperman]

I am so sorry, but not going to give way at this stage.

I am of course conscious of a detailed file of correspondence dating back some considerable time. As the hon. Lady will know, there are a number of bridges and tunnels on local public roads up and down the country that are operated either by the local highway authority or by private companies. Tolls continue to help repay the costs of the construction and continued maintenance of those crossings. I do not want to go into the nuts and bolts of the Tamar Bridge Act 1957, because I think I would fail to speak with the same eloquence as my hon. Friend, who is clearly acquainted with the Act and the consequential secondary provisions, the schedules and all matters pertaining, and has probably read the Committee notes in great detail as well.

The Tamar bridge and Torpoint ferry are tied together under the 1957 Act, which ensures that proceeds from the crossings are ringfenced and expenditure is limited to the operation, maintenance and improvements of the crossings. Crucially, it also limits any unjustified accumulation of reserves. The bridge and the ferry are jointly owned and operated by Cornwall Council and Plymouth City Council, but, as my hon. Friend said, they constitute a vital piece of infrastructure, carrying some 18 million vehicles a year. She rightly made the point on behalf of her constituents, but the freight industry benefits massively—today I met representatives of the RHA, who were passionate about making that point.

The money that is needed to operate, maintain and improve the two crossings currently comes from toll charges, with no specific funding from the Government or the owners of the two crossings. However, some money is contributed indirectly. National Highways makes an operational contribution each year, which enables the Tamar bridge and Torpoint ferry joint committee to monitor the Saltash tunnel tidal flow system. As was announced recently, there is funding for the A38 Manadon interchange transport scheme, promoted by the city council, amounting to about £132 million, with an outline business case stage of £156 million. Communications on that will be issued shortly. Welcome announcements have also been made about the A374, A386 and A3064 Plymouth improvements schemes, amounting to £42 million, with a total estimate of £49 million at the OBC stage.

My hon. Friend will also be aware that the Government have, on the back of the increased settlement at the last Budget in 2023, and by reason of the decisions on the second leg of High Speed 2, provided enhanced funding arising from the £8.3 billion that is shared out around the local authorities, but with a £36 million total for 2024-25 for Cornwall, and an increased total in relation to Plymouth, as I understand it.

In relation to the specifics, on 8 February, in response to my hon. Friend’s parliamentary question, and in subsequent correspondence, I have set out the position in relation to river and estuarial crossings. They will usually be funded by tolls, recognising the extra cost of their construction and maintenance, as well as the substantial benefits for users. The Prime Minister then also answered my hon. Friend at Prime Minister’s questions on 20 March, when he was pleased to indicate that the Transport Minister would address the matter shortly, and I was of course delighted to receive that instruction. I will not go into Hansard in detail, but he explained that any application for a toll revision, whereby the responsible authorities can seek a change, would need to be considered by the Secretary of State for Transport, who is my boss.

I can confirm that, since that exchange, a toll revision application in respect of the Tamar crossings was received on 2 May. The next step in the process is that an application for a toll increase will be advertised in the local press with details of the proposal to users of the crossings. There is then a 42-day objection period. If any objections to the proposed revisions—whether from individuals or collective bodies—are not subsequently withdrawn, a public inquiry is held. Where such an inquiry is held, the Secretary of State must have regard to its findings when deciding whether to revise the toll. I cannot address the findings of the Secretary of State, but clearly all representations made on these issues are considered, and clearly my hon. Friend will make many representations—I think that is a given.

[Richard Foord]

Will the Minister give way?

[Guy Opperman]

I will not give way; I will echo the approach of my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall.

It is the responsibility of the Tamar bridge and Torpoint ferry joint committee to work to find efficiencies in the operating costs so that the crossings are run as cost- effectively as possible. I would also like to raise an important initiative that is being taken forward locally: the Tamar bridge and Torpoint ferry joint committee has agreed its new “Tamar 50” approach. I cast no aspersions on whether it is a good or bad approach—it would not be appropriate for me to do so—but it is important that I put on the record that the Government are aware of the approach.

Clearly, the nine-point plan that the committee has set out provides users of the crossings with a more stable and certain future. Ideally, there is a degree of confidence on the way ahead, and people can see visible improvements to the structure. Critical safety works and the operational necessities that apply need to be seen. As I understand it, the plan includes work to look at the feasibility of free-flow tolling. That could be considered when a suitable funding source becomes available. My hon. Friend has addressed that, and I take her points with due seriousness.

As the Prime Minister outlined on 20 March, this is a real opportunity for key stakeholders to make their views about the crossings heard, and I encourage all colleagues and constituents—not just the thousands with strongly held views who have submitted the petition, and not just my hon. Friend with her many letters—to come forward with their views.

Transport Infrastructure: Devon and Somerset

Richard Foord Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd April 2024 Westminster Hall

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

I am incredibly grateful to the Minister, as always. He is right, and I was going to come on to HS2. I know that he sympathises with this, because he has a huge rural constituency, bigger than any in Devon. The road system up there is challenging, as I know—I used to live in it—not least because he has got the military running all over a part of his constituency.

The Minister is right: we have got to embrace that money. If nothing else, the message I give today to all colleagues is that Devon, Somerset and other counties need to get together, to start buying very expensive but very clever machines. There are ways to do that, and the Minister is right that the Prime Minister has led the way with this windfall, thank the Lord. It is marvellous to have it, and we should use every penny we can.

There is no secret that in Somerset we have a financial crisis. It is very difficult at the moment. We have managed to get through this year—we are fine—but next year is not looking so good. We have a lot of work to do, and if we do not do the work on roads, they just get worse. Then more money is required, and it a self-fulfilling prophecy. We have to help places that do not have the money—the same goes for Buckinghamshire and other counties that have the same problem. Devon is not in the same position, as my hon. Friend has already said—the county has been extremely generous and has got extra money out of its own resources, as we are all aware, which is tremendous—but we do need a better system.

One thing that has always struck me is that it is up to us—not just MPs, but county councillors—to ensure we work to try to resolve this. All of us walk or drive round our areas. How many times have we been down potholes? I quite often end up in hedgerows with punctures—as you can well imagine, Mr Streeter, knowing that my driving does not bear much scrutiny. It is infuriating but, if we do not say where the potholes are, we cause a problem for ourselves.

One of the biggest problems we all face is the size of tractors, which has increased enormously since we were young, dare I say. Tractors are now lane-filling. Devon and Somerset roads were never designed for that size of tractors, big lorries or some big cars. The weight of tractors has gone through the roof. What they now haul is hugely heavier than it used to be. That is one of the biggest problems we face, because they cause more and more damage. As one drives around both counties, it is the structure of the sides of the roads that is causing the problems. We have to be much more aware that farming damages roads, but there is nothing we can do about it. The farmers have every right to be there and need to be, but we need to cover that up.

This is my last point before I sit down and give way to the Minister, who I know has a lot to say on this. I am really disappointed about certain parts of Devon, which I am beginning to learn about, and especially Mid Devon District Council, which I find iniquitous. It should be scrutinising this, as should everyone else. I know it happens in Somerset and Devon counties. We would not have got the money if it had not. That is the point: they should scrutinise. To learn that the head of scrutiny has now legged it because it all got a bit tough and hard is pathetic. We need proper scrutiny.

[Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

In a minute.

I find it ridiculous that we cannot get this sorted. That is a ridiculous position for us to find ourselves in. Some people need to start thinking about what they are there for. MPs have a responsibility, which can be seen every day in newspapers, and we know what we suffer. I just wish a few of the councillors who are meant to represent their areas would do the same.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Foord]

I thank the hon. Member for giving way and commend him for securing this debate. Devon County Council is the local authority responsible for roads in Devon and the leader of Devon County Council, John Hart, said last year:

“They gave us £9.5 million and I hate to say it but £7 million of that went in inflation”.

He also said of that £9.5 million that it

“is a drop in the ocean.”

Does the hon. Member agree that the county council is responsible for roads and that the potholes we see are ultimately the responsibility of central Government?

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

I can see why the hon. Member was in the education corps. Where does one start? I think I will start with a sigh. That is better; I now feel fresh to go on.

John Hart, who I knew nearly 30 years ago, has led a council and has made massive differences. He has just announced that he will stand down after a very long period and I respect that. He has made £10 million available. He has taken his responsibility for roads in Devon deadly seriously. His achievement is remarkable, given that Devon has more roads than Belgium—am I right, Mr Streeter? I think that is right. My hon. Friend the Member for East Devon has made it quite clear that Devon has stepped up to the mark.

As for the hon. Member for the education corps—God help us!—scrutiny should be scrutiny. You can scrutinise anything you want—that is the point. I have always found that the best way to scrutinise is to take scrutiny down to a local level, because we live with those potholes in our areas. We live with them, not just as MPs, but as constituents and members of district councils. I therefore find the hon. Gentleman’s question iniquitously ridiculous.

On that happy note, Mr Streeter, I sit down. Thank you.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Guy Opperman)]

What a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Streeter. Obviously, I accept and acknowledge that, when you have served your constituents in the south-west for so long, you will be exceptionally interested in a debate such as this one, which has been secured by my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset (Mr Liddell-Grainger). I also genuinely acknowledge the passion and the fervour that my hon. Friend has brought, as always, to this particular issue. I commend him for the tone of his speech and for the fact that he is sticking up for his constituents, as he has done so very well for many a year.

This issue is clearly something that we all care about. There is no doubt whatsoever that all our constituents are passionately concerned about the state of the roads that they have to utilise, whether that is as a driver, as a farmer, as someone who does logistics and deliveries as part of a business, or as someone trying to engage regularly in active travel. All those activities are affected by the state of our roads and we are all conscious of that.

One must look at the consequential decisions that the Government have made over the last year in particular to address some of those problems, because if I look back at the situation approximately 16 or 18 months ago and compare it with the situation now, I see that it has been utterly transformed. That has happened in three ways. The core base budget that both local authorities had was substantial and had been going up periodically, but there is no doubt that it was a struggle; we all acknowledge that. To a lesser or greater degree, that is true of different local authorities up and down the country.

Clearly, the first thing that happened was the spring Budget of 2023, which saw a significant uplift to both local authorities: just under £5 million to Somerset and £9 million to Devon. Subsequently, the decision of the Prime Minister in October 2023 in relation to HS2 utterly transformed the funding increase, because there is a base increase of funding ultimately of 30% in the case of both local authorities. That is transformational funding—there is no question whatsoever about that.

[Richard Foord]

The Minister refers to “transformational funding”, but I think that expression would jar with the experience of constituents in Devon who I talk to. In total, 966 claims were made for compensation by Devon residents, amounting to £1.1 million, between April and December last year. Would he like to comment on this disjuncture between, on the one hand, the “transformational” change that he talks about and, on the other hand, the day-to-day experience of my constituents?

[Guy Opperman]

I have answered such questions repeatedly since the debate on 19 December and at other times. Simply put, the situation is this: if one has a business or statutory undertaking, and one increases the budget to address a problem by over 30%, there is no other part of the Government infrastructure that has been increased in that way. There is no local authority in the country that has had the benefit of that in other parts of its portfolio. The reality is that the transport budget for highways maintenance has been dramatically addressed. No one is diminishing the impact of what has happened in the past and the day-to-day vicissitudes that people have to face, whether those are on the Somerset levels or the Slapton line, which I debated in the House barely a month ago. There are clearly instances where those things need to be addressed, and frankly the Prime Minister has taken a very bold decision to address the problem specifically, which is massively to his credit.

Obviously, that is on top of record amounts of bus funding. There has been a significant increase in bus funding, such as the £2 bus fare, the bus service improvement plans money and the active travel budget, which has seen considerable enhancements to Devon of over £6 million and to Somerset of over £3 million since 2020. There is massively increased support for all forms of cycling and walking. Also, the rail station infrastructure has increased, whether that is in Cullompton—which the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Transport have visited—or elsewhere. A huge amount of investment is going on.

Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Foord Excerpts

Thursday 21st March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

1. What recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of bus service levels in England.

[Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)]

8. What recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of local bus services.

[Fabian Hamilton (Leeds North East) (Lab)]

9. What steps he is taking to improve bus services in Leeds.

--- Later in debate ---

[Guy Opperman]

We particularly want to try to assist the hon. Lady and her local authority with the finances. The West of England combined authority receives £1.1 million every year through the bus service operators grant to subsidise socially necessary bus services. It has also been allocated in excess of £1.2 billion in city region sustainable transport settlements 1 and 2 to deliver transport infrastructure, which includes the bus infrastructure the hon. Lady requires.

[Richard Foord]

As a regular bus user myself, I recognise it when people in rural Devon tell me that some buses fail to appear, meaning they miss connections with trains as a result. The services are well used by college students. Unreliable bus services not only affect the productivity of the college students, but of their parents who are then called upon to help the students make the journey to college, curtailing their working day. What can the Government do to encourage better co-ordination between rail and buses to get students to college on time?

[Guy Opperman]

That depends on funding, as the hon. Gentleman will be aware because I raised it with him in his Adjournment debate on 19 December. Devon County Council has been awarded £17.4 million to deliver its bus service improvement plan, but there should be better integration between the providers, the local authority and the rail companies.

Cycle Trails

Richard Foord Excerpts

Wednesday 28th February 2024 Westminster Hall

[Tracey Crouch]

I agree wholeheartedly. I am a passionate advocate for the outdoors and all that it can bring, and the hon. Gentleman will not be surprised to learn that I think that cycling is just one way of bringing that natural wellbeing. It does not have to be cycling; it can be walking, rambling, climbing or canoeing—there are all sorts of wonderful activities. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that I am hosting an event next week with the hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Kim Leadbeater) on bringing the outdoors to everyone. Cycling is an important part of that story.

The more I travel around on my bike, on and off-road, the more I despair. I know that the Minister shares my desperate desire to get people out of their cars and on bikes, but the roads and cycle lanes around my constituency and beyond are dangerous. I certainly would not let my son ride his bike on the road; instead, I would willingly accept the wrath of those he negotiates on a path. Where cycle lanes do exist, they are often left unswept and covered in debris, meaning that cyclists have to cycle in the road. There are potholes that not only damage bicycles but are frankly dangerous on many routes.

In some situations, section 106 money has been offered to improve existing cycle routes, whether they are trails or lanes, that are pleasantly away from traffic, such as those between Aylesford and Larkfield. Instead, however, it is being used to create cycle paths that share the road with enormous lorries and delivery trucks. Sustrans, which the hon. Member for Batley and Spen mentioned, was kind enough to send me a note before this debate, pointing out route 17 in my constituency. I know parts of that route very well. This morning, I invited Sustrans to cycle it with me, because personally I do not think it is a viable route, especially in the winter months.

There is the most wonderful path between Aylesford and Maidstone, which I had the pleasure of opening in 2017. It was much loved and well used; it was flat and perfect for teaching little people how to ride a bike. Unfortunately, a small section of the Aylesford river path crumbled and part collapsed into the river at the beginning of lockdown. I have been campaigning constantly ever since, to the point of exasperation, for it to be fixed. It is a regular grumble on local residents’ pages. The Minister has been the unfortunate victim of my ear-bending about how the path needs some funding—not least because, as the main off-road walk from Aylesford to Maidstone, it had several thousand users per month at one point. It feels like such a wasted resource for walkers, riders and runners alike. Any news from the Minister today on the path would be very welcome.

Last week, my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Trudy Harrison) led a debate in the House, to which the Minister responded and I contributed, that highlighted the health benefits of learning to cycle. Kent’s Bikeability stats are woeful. Just 13% reach the required level against a target of 50%, which is well below the national target of 50%. Medway’s is better, at 47% against a target of 60%, but it can be much improved. Both appear to have had central Government investment. It would be useful to hear from the Minister what more he could do in Kent in particular to scale up provision.

[Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)]

The hon. Lady refers to statistics on provision in Kent. To get good statistics on cycle trail provision in our constituencies, consultation is necessary. A consultation opened yesterday on the Cullompton and Tiverton local cycling and walking infrastructure plan, which is very welcome; I encourage people to get involved. Does the hon. Lady, like me, pay tribute to people in Sidmouth in the East Devon constituency, who provided more than 185 responses to a questionnaire from a Sidmouth cycling campaign?

[Tracey Crouch]

I pay tribute to the people who responded. I was speaking last week to my hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Simon Jupp) about it, because he wanted some advice on cycle trails; he is clearly passionate about providing cycle trails and routes. I fondly recollected that the first people I met when I did the recent Ride the Night charity ride from Windsor to Buckingham Palace and back were a couple from Honiton. Cycling is obviously important in Devon, as is having the appropriate routes.

It is really important that we have routes that people want to use, rather than ones provided by local authorities without any consultation. One of my frustrations is that planners quite often put a line in and think it is the appropriate route, when they have not engaged with people on whether it will be used. I definitely welcome the consultation in the constituency of the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Richard Foord) and in the neighbouring constituency of East Devon.

It would be really helpful if the Minister outlined what he thinks good provision for cycle paths and trails looks like, because there is no point in learning to cycle if we have nowhere safe to ride. Cycling is great for physical and mental health, and it is also good for the environment. Establishing a proper trail network benefits everyone, but it requires a proper strategy that connects transport and planning. It is so infuriating to see cycle routes being retrofitted to new developments as an afterthought. The Minister, who shares our love of the outdoors, would be the perfect person to lead a trail strategy that recognised the health, economic, tourism and environmental benefits of a safe network of trails.

Finally, we have some inspirational elite riders who we hope will dominate the Paris Olympics this summer. What message does the Minister have for local authorities to provide to youngsters such as Harrison who wish to take their trail riding to the next level?

I love my bikes; I have a special room for them. I know that I am fortunate to have more than one, but I love the freedom that cycling gives me on and off the road. It can take us into the fresh air away from our trials and tribulations and forge new friendships, build resilience and tackle antisocial behaviour. The more we can do to open provision up to all levels for all types of activities, the better. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

--- Later in debate ---

[Guy Opperman]

My right hon. Friend makes a very serious point. I have the great honour and privilege of being asked to visit a whole host of cycle trails, whether they are in Tunbridge Wells, Batley and Spen, or Strangford, all of which possess amazing countryside that I would be very happy to visit. However, getting to and from these locations, particularly for children and those on a low income—with all those complications—is not easy, bluntly. We must take that on board.

This and future Governments need to wrestle with a whole host of challenges, as do local authorities. Some of that is funding, but we also need to have a different sort of vision about the community we are looking after. There are examples of train companies that will not allow bicycles on trains, and of bus companies that are reluctant to have bicycles on their buses—I could go on. Frankly, that sort of stuff must stop.

When I took this brief on, I specifically made the strong point that although, yes, I would be looking after roads and buses, there was relatively little point for the active travel aspect not to be integrated with other parts of the portfolio. The beauty of that is that if we are having a conversation with local authorities or bus companies about trying to do things in a different way, we are also trying to integrate active travel and accessible travel so that the system is joined up. My right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) and my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford know the great joy of being a Minister—it is amazing—but any Minister knows that joined-up Government is a holy grail that we all aspire to and cannot always achieve. Getting different Departments and parts of an individual portfolio to talk to and integrate with each other is utterly key.

[Richard Foord]

There are places where we have public transport links and good rail services, such as in my Tiverton and Honiton constituency. Does that suggest that perhaps the Department would be more welcoming of constructing cycle trails around places such as Tiverton Parkway, the new railway station at Cullompton, and Feniton, Axminster, Honiton and Whimple?

[Guy Opperman]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, this amazing Government brought forward the new railway station at Cullompton.

It is clear that I want to see more people on a bike, and more accessible and active travel. The best bit of that is Bikeability. I will just talk about that very briefly, because it really matters. The Government have given £21 million for Bikeability, which has delivered almost 500,000 places and reached 51% of year 6 children in 60% of primary schools. I genuinely believe, however, that we can do a lot more. Local authorities really need to step up to the plate, because this matters. Learning to cycle from a young age is a life skill. Aside from all the health benefits and independence that it provides, and aside from the fact that it is so much cheaper in the long term, cycling gives individuals great confidence in their capabilities and develops our children in a game-changing way.

Over the coming years, we will invest a further £50 million in Bikeability to deliver training for over 1 million more children. We believe that, by 2025, 80% of year 6 children will be taking part in on-road cycle training before leaving primary school. Turning to the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells, although teaching kids in school how to ride a bike is great, we also need local authorities to use their local cycling and walking infrastructure plans and development funding to ensure that it is easy for kids to cycle to school, as we discussed in the debate on active travel in the House last week. That is the holy grail. With no disrespect to individual parents, we want kids to walk or cycle to the local school. That is why so many of us support 20 mph zones outside schools, which make total sense and support ongoing cycling.

I echo the support of my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford for the national cycle network and the work of Sustrans. The network is clearly a national asset; it provides more than 12,000 miles of signed paths and routes for walking, wheeling, cycling and exploring the outdoors. The Department has supported the upkeep of this national asset to the tune of £75 million. I take my hon. Friend’s point about cycle trails, and note her example of cycle trails funded by the police and crime commissioner. Without a shadow of a doubt, we want to do more, and I am keen to look at that. I will engage with Danny Williams and the Active Travel England team in York to see what more we can do.

Walking and Cycling: Government Support

Richard Foord Excerpts

Tuesday 20th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Trudy Harrison]

Yes again. There is a lot of agreement in the House tonight, and enabling those routes to schools and tackling those junctions is primarily what Active Travel England will be looking at. Having routes that comply with local transport note 1/20 is really important, but where that is not possible, we should not let the perfect be the enemy of the good; we should enable as many children as is physically possible to get on to their bikes or walk to school, to form early healthy habits so that they grow into healthier adults.

[Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving way. I am particularly pleased that she has focused on young people in her debate, which is very impressive, but of course, some of the infrastructure for active travel is also needed by older people. On 18 January this year, sadly, an air ambulance evacuated a constituent of mine; it was reported that there had been a collision with a van on the B3440. Does the hon. Member agree that sound cycling infrastructure is needed not only for young people, but for older people?

[Trudy Harrison]

Of course that is needed for all ages; I welcome the hon. Member’s intervention. My point is that when resources are stretched and priorities need to be made, we should prioritise those early habits, because those children will grow into adults. It is an absolutely crying shame that in this country an average of about 25 limbs are amputated every day as a result of diabetes. I think it is a national disgrace that we have the third highest population living with obesity in Europe. While we are very good in Cumbria at teaching Bikeability training, we are, sadly, woefully inadequate when it comes to children getting out and riding their bikes, with, unsurprisingly, the health inequalities that follow. Those statistics are national statistics, but they are even worse in Cumbria.

--- Later in debate ---

[Guy Opperman]

My hon. Friend has done a very good Radio 2 link to what I was going to talk about. As the Minister for active travel, I am delighted to say that I have done RideLondon. On several occasions I have done the Haydon Hundred in my constituency. The most interesting of all is the Dunwich Dynamo, which is undoubtedly the most iconic cycling race of all time. It is an attempt by more than 5,000 people to leave a Hackney pub on the shortest night of the year and cycle, totally unsupported, from Hackney all the way to Dunwich in Suffolk—120 miles—through the night. The instructions are literally an envelope. Without a shadow of a doubt, it is the most fearsome and amazing cycle trip to be part of. RideLondon is a massive boost to the local economy, and extols various local virtues.

My hon. Friend the Member for Copeland asked me to go to Holland on a cycle trip with Danny Williams, the amazing chief executive, and I endorse her assessment of him. I must confess that about 20 years ago, long before I came to this place, I did the trip from Zandvoort on the coast to Amsterdam on a bike, and I have cycled extensively in Holland. We in this House should be excited because although we might say, “Our infrastructure is not quite there. We want to do more cycling and walking, and we want things to be better. We want active travel to be more impressive and for the opportunities to be better,” we only have to look back at the situation in Holland only 30 or 40 years ago to see the degree to which its infrastructure has transformed the nation and how its populus gets about. That is totally tangible. We are some years behind it in that change, but we should strive to emulate that objective.

My hon. Friend spoke glowingly about the coast-to-coast, the quality of which I endorse, having done it. I trump her 190 miles with the 268 miles of the Pennine way, the first part of which I was delighted to do with my good friend the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield), who sadly is also standing down, when we were raising money for brain tumours, having both suffered from them. The transformation of the visitor economy and the tourism boost from cycling and walking is game changing. There is no doubt whatsoever about that. We should be fully behind that. That is why I invited my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland to Northumberland to get behind the Tynedale superhighway, and why this Government have given £9 million for the Hexham to Corbridge cycle route, the work on which is ongoing. The LCWIPs that she talked so glowingly about are clearly the way ahead.

[Richard Foord]

The Minister talked about LCWIPs at the last Adjournment debate of 2023 on transport infrastructure in Cullompton. I remember him saying that the LCWIPs for Cullompton would be consulted on, which is true—that consultation concluded earlier this month. Can his Department work with Devon County Council to ensure that the walking and cycling infrastructure around Cullompton extends all the way to Tiverton, Willand and Uffculme?

[Guy Opperman]

I will await the information put forward by the local authority, but it is unquestionably the case that we are trying to take forward the LCWIPs and to ensure the best usage, enhancement and improvement of local infrastructure. I await what the local authority has proposed.

On the point my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland made about schools, surely we can all get behind the 20 mph zone around them. It is unquestionable that where local authorities can prioritise LCWIPs around schools, they should do so. If the message has not gone out, I am happy to make that point.

I have been asked to do an awful lot of writing to an awful lot of people, and let me address those points. First and foremost, all cycling and walking has a massive benefit and impact on health. My hon. Friend identified that if we want a healthier Britain, more people need to be cycling and walking. The evidence is overwhelming that regular physical activity of any shape or form reduces the risk of type 2 diabetes by up to 40% and cardiovascular disease by up to 35%. My hon. Friend is right that there are sadly far too many obese children in our schools and far too many people who are not taking advantage of the great outdoors, much to the consternation of my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford. We have to change that. We have to try to change those perceptions and get this country out of the torpor that it descended into slightly during covid.

Rural Transport

Richard Foord Excerpts

Monday 8th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir Bill Wiggin]

I believe the hon. Gentleman was named as one of the busiest parliamentarians, so I am very pleased that my Adjournment debate has not missed his attention. Of course, I agree with him.

[Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Member on securing this Adjournment debate on such an important topic. Like his Herefordshire constituency, my East Devon constituency has running through it an A-road that is potted with dangerous potholes. I was pleased to hear that we might soon receive additional money for dealing with those potholes, but does he agree that levelling up is not just for villages in rural areas such as ours but also a concept that needs to be applied to the road surface?

[Sir Bill Wiggin]

I noticed that the hon. Gentleman kept looking at notes. That is how it is in the countryside: we have to keep looking for the potholes all around us. I absolutely agree.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Guy Opperman)]

That was a tour de force, by any interpretation, from my gallant and hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire (Sir Bill Wiggin). It is a pleasure to respond on behalf of the Government on the vital issue of rural transport and to his thought-provoking speech this evening. I know his constituency well; I rode my first winner as a jockey there at Garnons point-to-point, back in the 1840s, and he understands that, as a Member for a rural constituency myself, I share his concerns and his desire to have better transport in rural areas.

It is a measure of the importance of this debate not only that my hon. Friend took a very considerable time to make his case, but that many parliamentary colleagues came in for an Adjournment debate in circumstances where there is much to answer. Rural transport is an issue that has been transformed by the Prime Minister’s decision to cancel the second leg of HS2 and attribute significantly larger amounts of funding, which I will go through, to transport infrastructure across the country, and in particular to support rural communities.

There is no doubt whatsoever that the points made by several hon. Friends are utterly right. As part of Network North, we have announced £8.3 billion of funding to fix potholes and maintain our roads. We have already commenced paying that money, and I will go through the Herefordshire funding, because it matters to see the transformation in funding that has taken place.

We should bear in mind that in 2008-09 and 2009-10 less than £10 million in funding was allocated to Herefordshire Council. That, in reality, has now doubled to £18.76 million this year, up 31%, by reason of the announcements that I will go through. There is the baseline funding of £14 million, on top of which there was an increase of £2.56 million as part of the 2023 budget. On top of that there was a further £106 million in additional funding as part of the Network North 11-year period of funding up to 2033-34. Finally, Herefordshire has already received the first instalment of £1.8 million, in December 2023.

I think I am achieving a parliamentary hat-trick by responding to the Adjournment debates on the second-to-last day of the winter term, on the last day of the winter term and on the first day of this term. I commenced with a robust No. 10 in my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) on 18 December, an interesting but genuine No. 11 on 19 December, and then an opening bat in the Graveney mould on the first day of this term.

The particular relevance of this is that the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Richard Foord) stated in this and previous debates that Devon was not getting any funding. He will be aware that it received in excess of £6.6 million over the next two years to combat potholes in his constituency, over and above the baseline funding and the 2023 budget. For context, in this year alone that equates to a 16.6% uplift in his county council’s pothole budget.

[Richard Foord]

Will the Minister give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Guy Opperman]

Mr Speaker, with respect, I was going to allow the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton to intervene. I have a lot of Members to deal with and I was going to address pothole funding first, but I will of course allow him to respond.

[Richard Foord]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. I appreciate his point about the money being released to places such as Devon, but I speak to constituents who think that one reason why speed restrictions are being imposed on rural roads is because of potholes. That is clearly not the Government’s intention, so is this a form of speed restriction?

[Guy Opperman]

I refer the hon. Gentleman to the copious answer I made on those points on 19 December.

The reality of the situation is that, in addition to the Herefordshire funding, there is a further £4.7 billion for local authorities in the north and midlands through the new local integrated transport settlement, which will allow authorities to deliver a range of new transport schemes to help reduce congestion and upgrade junctions, as well as to invest in active travel and zero-emission buses.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire specifically raised the Hereford bypass, which did not proceed under a previous local authority. I am happy to meet him and the present local authority, because clearly there are opportunities through the local integrated transport settlement, and other forms of funding, for local authorities to bring forward proposals in relation to potential bypasses. It is for the county council to make that case, and I look forward to hearing from it.

As the House has debated in detail tonight, buses have a key role to play in improving connectivity and supporting rural areas to develop and grow the economy. That is why the Government have invested so heavily in buses over the past few years. Following the introduction of the national bus strategy, the Government are providing over £1 billion of support to help local authorities to deliver their bus service improvement plans, and this support will remain in place until at least April 2025. It is up to local authorities to determine how this bus funding should be spent, including by assessing the needs of local communities.

In addition, Herefordshire, like many rural areas of the north and midlands, will benefit from hundreds of millions of pounds that the Government have allocated from the HS2 moneys, through Network North, to help level up bus services. That includes £1.9 million of bus service improvement plan funding, and it will receive further money through Network North funding.

As part of our regular funding, we also support buses through the bus service operators grant, which is worth over £259 million a year to bus and community transport operators. My hon. Friend spoke about particular bus services, and the demand-responsive services mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne) are a good example. I totally agree, and I strongly believe that it is up to local authorities to drive forward successful operators.

I am aware of the Border Rambler and Fellrunner bus services mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Dr Hudson). And my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Paul Howell) rightly made the case that it is up to his local authority to ensure that bus services, particularly in the southern part of his constituency, are made available to his constituents.

I deprecate those individual providers that have not taken up the £2 bus fare, which is a key change we have made. With great respect, the introduction of the £2 bus fare has been transformational in my Northumberland community and across the country. I am delighted that, following the launch of Network North, the £2 bus fare will continue to run for a considerable time.

We know that rural bus fares can be expensive, for obvious reasons. Before the introduction of the £2 cap, many users of rural bus services found themselves having to pay more than £5 a trip. I am particularly pleased that we have extended the cap, which clearly supports local communities and local economies by making travel to employment, health and leisure services in our beautiful rural regions more affordable and more accessible. On a local level, it has been utterly transformational in places such as Haltwhistle in Northumberland.

I share the disappointment that some bus operators, including some in Herefordshire, have not signed up to the £2 bus fare, and I would urge them to do so. Over £600 million has been made available for the scheme to reduce the cost of bus travel. Although participation is voluntary, the Department for Transport has encouraged as many operators as possible across the whole region to continue to participate.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) made a similar point in respect of his rural community, which I know very well, having been to Newtownards and around his parts and having lived in Northern Ireland, just outside Moy, for the best part of a year. I accept his point, which he makes as eloquently as ever—it would not be a proper Adjournment debate without his outstanding contribution.

My hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy (Robin Millar) rightly made the point that the Welsh Government have got themselves into a bizarre situation. The petition against the 20 mph limit, which is clearly an attack on drivers, is probably the most successful petition in the history of this country on any particular issue. I fear that the Welsh Government will rue the day that they went down that particular route on something so extremely unpopular.

On speed limits, my hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire raised the issue of the M50 and whether there is the potential to introduce a change of speed limit. I accept that he makes the point for an increase. The point I would make to him is that it is a matter for him, and more particularly his local authority, to sit down and discuss that with National Highways, which governs the strategic network, and then set speed limits on individual roads. They have the local knowledge and are best placed to do so, but it is for the local authority to drive that forward with National Highways in the first instance.

Transport Infrastructure: Cullompton

Richard Foord Excerpts

Tuesday 19th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to have secured the final debate of 2023. I understand that I have until about half past seven, but given that I am the only thing standing between the Minister and sherry, mince pies and wrapping gifts by the fire, I probably will not take the full two hours and 20 minutes.

I have a request of the Minister this afternoon. I am asking this Government to deliver the people of Cullompton a gift that everyone there has been asking for for years: the Cullompton relief road and the railway station. Cullompton is a rural market town nestled in the Culm valley. There has been a town there since Roman times—if you go out and knock on doors in the area, people will tell you that they have been waiting that long for the relief road and the railway station. The layout of the town would be familiar to anyone who has visited a small west country town: it has one major road, straddled by shops and houses. The town centre is very much the beating heart of the community. It has a regular farmers market that takes place once a month, every second Saturday. The economy of the town is built on a past involving wool, cloth and leather working, but in recent years it is very much a commuter community, with people making journeys to Exeter in particular.

[Simon Jupp (East Devon) (Con)]

Earlier this year, I distributed a survey across Cullompton to ask residents about their transport priorities. The responses made it crystal clear that a railway station was much needed, alongside a relief road and M5 junction upgrades. Residents tell me on the doorstep that new housing must come with infrastructure first, and they are right. While in the Department for Transport, I worked with the community and Conservative county councillor John Berry to secure a new railway station, after meetings with the Chancellor, the Transport Secretary and the Rail Minister. Local residents in Cullompton have waited long enough. It is time for decisive action, not just warm words. Does the hon. Member need a hand to get a relief road, too?

[Richard Foord]

My neighbour, the hon. Member for Exmouth, is quite right that people in Cullompton are calling for this, but they have had enough of surveys. They have been consulted until their pens have no ink left in them. In 2018, Devon County Council ran a survey on the Cullompton town centre relief road. Another survey, organised by Cullompton Community Association fields, revealed that people were torn but would give up their community fields for the sake of a relief road to stop the awful congestion in the centre of the town. Now there is to be a further consultation, on both the relief road and junction 28, on which progress also needs to be made; I will expand on that shortly. People in Cullompton are sick of being consulted. They want to see action, and in particular they do not want to see surveys that are simply a means of harvesting voter intention data.

Huge volumes of traffic pass through Cullompton every day. The town is home to roughly 9,000 people, but it is reckoned that 37,000 a day commute into and out of Exeter, and many of them are from Cullompton. Traffic often becomes backed up and gridlocked, especially at busy times—early in the morning, or when children are picked up from school. I experienced that at first hand recently when driving to one of my advice surgeries in Cullompton. So bad was the congestion that I had to turn the engine off to stop it idling and releasing pollution.

Planning permission for the relief road was granted by Mid Devon District Council in January 2021, not without cost to local amenities. I have played football with my children at the CCA fields, and I know that members of the cricket and bowling clubs would love to have better pitches or greens, but above all else they want certainty: they want to know what the future of the town will look like. What they do not want is an enormous amount of housing with no supporting infrastructure. The Minister and other Members will have heard about the appeals that have taken place, but I should point out that Cullompton is a special case. There are plans for a north-west urban extension, and also for a garden village.

As Members will know, garden villages were an initiative thought up in 2017, and the Culm garden village is set to add 5,000 new houses to the town. If that were accompanied by promises of a new GP centre, new community sports facilities, new schools, new bus links and new cricket pitches, those might offer some amelioration, but all that people in Cullompton are seeing is more houses. We cannot keep building houses without the appropriate infrastructure to support them. Our roads cannot cope with the volume of traffic that we are seeing.

Then there is question of the motorway. The M5 goes past Cullompton, and junction 28 is one of the more congested motorway junctions. In fact, it is dangerously congested. National Highways said recently that it was

“unable to support development which introduces an unacceptable risk to highway safety, which includes queuing extending onto the M5”.

“Development” is actually a euphemism for housing. What National Highways is really saying is that we cannot afford more housing in this town, because it will simply cause queues on the motorway—but the queues are not just on the motorway; they are also through the town itself. All the motorists who get snarled up in the town, idling in traffic, know that they should be looking to Westminster and Whitehall for the solutions. Cullompton Town Council itself has said that it will “actively oppose” any residential development at east Cullompton until the town centre relief road is delivered and the capacity of junction 28 is increased. That will need to include safe pedestrian crossings over the M5, the railway and the river.

It is about time that Westminster and Whitehall took a look at that, because it is something that MPs and candidates through the ages have called for. Certainly, in the Tiverton and Honiton by-election last year, the Conservative candidate and I both called for it. As Cullompton’s MP, I have raised the issue in Parliament on multiple occasions and urged Ministers to consider how the lack of a relief road is affecting people in Cullompton. In the local elections earlier this year, Cullompton went Liberal Democrat. I dare say that that was a sign of people’s protests, and an indication that they are not prepared to put up with being overlooked on this issue by the Conservative Government here in Westminster.

We saw the welcome Network North announcements this autumn, but the opportunity to fund the relief road was passed over in rounds 1 and 2 of the levelling-up fund and, although we did not know it at the time, in round 3 as well, when Devon did not get any levelling-up funding at all. With all the furore, anyone would think that the relief road was going to be enormously expensive, but in the context of the sorts of figures that the Department for Transport is dealing with, I suggest that £35 million is not enormous, particularly as £10 million of that has already been secured by Homes England. To get best value out of that, the Government will want to match-fund against that £10 million from the housing infrastructure fund, for which there is a deadline.

It is thought that the upgrade to junction 28 would cost a further £34 million. That is a much more expensive proposition, but a lot of work has gone into it, costing £800,000 so far. That has resulted in a robust and financially sound business case. The junction 28 proposal contained 25 options, such was the diligent work that went into it, and they have been whittled down to just three. The proposal has now gone out to public consultation, with a deadline of 5 February. Members will forgive the people of Cullompton for being tired of being consulted on these matters; they just want to see action.

The case for the relief road and junction 28 is also health-related, as it relates to traffic and congestion. This is why we also need a railway station at Cullompton. There was a recent announcement of funding to reopen Cullompton station. Again, Network North was something of a re-announcement, but we were certainly glad to be part of the restoring your railway announcement in 2020. A strategic outline business case was developed last year and it will go to a full business case in 2024, with the potential opening of Cullompton railway station in 2025. I work alongside my co-chair, the hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow), as part of the metro board looking at every stage of the development and at how Network Rail and Great Western Railway are doing, perhaps giving them a little bit of a nudge when necessary but absolutely supporting their excellent work.

A railway station at Cullompton, along with the improvements to junction 28 and a relief road, will help with air pollution. The air quality management area in Cullompton has good monitoring, but I am afraid it reveals very poor outcomes for people’s health. It is estimated that the building of the relief road and the improvements to junction 28 would result in a reduction in the levels of nitrogen dioxide in the air of between 69% and 79%. That would clearly improve people’s health locally.

There are also plans afoot for walking and cycling. I have had people working with me on cycle routes in the area. Sustrans is considering linking Tiverton and Exeter through Cullompton, and there is a local cycling and walking infrastructure plan for connecting Willand and Uffculme. Together, all these initiatives—the relief road, the railway station and the walking, cycling and wheeling routes—will make a very friendly part of Devon into an environmentally friendly one.

In closing, I give credit to Neil Parish, my predecessor, who worked on this during his time as an MP, and to local Liberal Democrat campaigners who have been working with me on the operational details. I hope that we can think of today’s debate in the context of Christmas present. The word “present” in that context is usually associated with a gift, but I would like the Government to think of it in the context of the present tense—that is to say, I hope that we might see some action on Cullompton railway station, the relief road and junction 28 in the present and not at some unspecified point in the future. Those would be gifts for which I know that people in mid-Devon would be very grateful.

[Simon Jupp]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I seek an apology, as the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Richard Foord) did not name my constituency correctly in response to my intervention. He referred to me as the MP for Exmouth, but my constituency also includes Sidmouth and I should be referred to as the MP for East Devon. He has done this politically in local newspapers and leaflets. I wish also to clarify that Devon was successful, to the tune of nearly £40 million, in the most recent round of levelling-up funding, just to correct the researcher or whoever wrote the hon. Gentleman’s speech. I seek an apology for my constituency being named incorrectly, and a promise from the hon. Gentleman that he will not do so again.

Highways Maintenance and Integrated Transport Funding

Richard Foord Excerpts

Monday 18th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Guy Opperman)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) on securing the debate and on enlightening the House so much, as he always does, about his amazing community—I know it well, as I visit it frequently. He is genuinely transformational in his representation of it. It is rare in an Adjournment debate to be enlightened by the words and actions of Josiah Wedgwood, the origins of the word “pothole”, a limerick or lyric to describe how they drive the community potty in the Potteries, and so much more. Reference was made to the amazing Tunstall Team, as I shall now call them, who have transformed action in the local community. I pay credit to all the team who are doing great work in bringing forward action on the local roads.

This is an important topic and there should be no doubt whatsoever that we in Government take it very seriously. My hon. Friend rightly raises the condition of local roads, which up and down the country are a matter of great importance for motorists and local communities.

[Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)]

One area where potholes are at the forefront of people’s minds is Devon, where we have an 8,000-mile road network—as long as Iceland’s, and twice the length of Rwanda’s. In rural areas such as Devon, the roads are also affected by, for instance, agricultural vehicles, which place greater strains on them than are placed on urban roads.

[Guy Opperman]

I believe that the community that I represent in rural Northumberland is the second biggest in the country. It takes me the best part of two hours to drive across it. I am extremely familiar with the impact of the farming community, and I am well aware of the consequences of forestry lorries in my own patch in Hexham. However, I would say gently to the hon. Gentleman that the Government recently gave a 30% uplift to Devon County Council. It also gave an uplift to Stoke-on-Trent City Council, which I will discuss shortly in rather more detail. While the hon. Gentleman has made the fair point that there is much to be done to upgrade the road network, it is unquestionably the case that there has been a massive and utterly unprecedented increase in funding for local authorities up and down the country.

That derives, of course, from the Prime Minister’s October announcement about Network North and the plan for drivers, which make it clear that this Government are firmly on the side of the motorist, and also firmly on the side of those who wish to improve our road network. Even before the Network North announcement, the Government were already allocating more than £5.5 billion to local councils in England over the current Parliament to enable them to maintain their roads. On 4 October, however, the Prime Minister confirmed £8.3 billion of extra funding for highways maintenance for the next 11 years, following the challenging but necessary decision to scrap the northern leg of HS2. This unprecedented funding increase will be additional to what local authorities were expecting to receive over the period in question. It will enable an unprecedented transformation in the condition of our highways, and will help to tackle the scourge of potholes.

Local authorities in the midlands and the north that are not part of mayoral combined authority areas will also receive their share of the brand-new local integrated transport settlement fund that was announced as part of Network North. We believe that local communities know best what transport solutions work in their areas, and the LITS fund will empower local authorities to fund the local transport infrastructure that their areas need. That could include upgrading road junctions, upgrading pavements, reducing congestion, and helping buses to run more reliably. The money could also be spent on additional highway maintenance activities, over and above those already funded through the Department’s highways maintenance block, if that is a local priority—and my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North has made it very clear that as far as he is concerned, it is a local priority. The Department hopes to publish the LITS allocations for individual local transport authorities shortly—that is, in the next couple of months.

In keeping with the Prime Minister’s commitment, all funding previously allocated to the north and the midlands will still be allocated there, which I am sure my hon. Friend will welcome. Of the £8.3 billion, £150 million is being made available in the current financial year to allow authorities to make an immediate start on resurfacing their roads. The Department made the first payments—this is apposite in the context of the debate—on 1 December, and it will give them their share of an additional £150 million again in 2024-25.

Let me now turn to what this means for local highway authorities in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North. Stoke-on-Trent City Council received an extra £378,000 this month as its share of the Network North uplift, on top of the earlier increase of £528,000 that it received as part of the £200 million uplift announced in the 2023 Budget. That means that, overall, Stoke-on-Trent will receive 30% more road repair funding than it received last year, which is a massive step forward. This is, we believe, a real and tangible benefit that the people of Stoke-on-Trent will see for themselves, and a great testament to the work of my hon. Friend and his Stoke-on-Trent colleagues in advocating more road investment.

That share of the uplift is very good news for my hon. Friend’s constituents. All this takes Stoke-on-Trent’s total highway maintenance funding from the Department to more than £3.8 million in the current financial year, on top of about £1.6 million of integrated transport block funding. Over the full 11 years of Network North funding—as my hon. Friend knows, it is provided for a period on a continuous basis—Stoke-on-Trent will receive an additional amount of more than £22 million.

I note that some of my hon. Friend’s constituency falls in Staffordshire, and I take on board the point raised by my good friend the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). Some support will also go to Staffordshire County Council, amounting to an uplift of more than £3 million this month, on top of the increase of £4.5 million that it received after the 2023 Budget. Over the full 11 years of Network North funding, Staffordshire will receive over £186 million of additional funding. This long-term certainty gives time for local authorities and their supply chains to ramp up and then deliver their programmes of work. The funding is much more than the local highway authorities were expecting and represents an increase of around two thirds in the Department’s support for local highway maintenance. We want to ensure that the funding delivers a transformational improvement in the condition of local roads.

With so much extra funding, there also needs to be greater scrutiny of how the money is spent. We will therefore require all local authorities to publish by March 2024 a summary of the additional resurfacing work that they will deliver with the new funding over the next two years. They will thereafter publish quarterly reports summarising what additional work they have done and which roads have been resurfaced, and then publish a long-term plan for the full use of their 11-year funding and the transformation it will deliver.

My hon. Friend raised the issue of ringfencing and I want to try to address that. Clearly this is an important point about the way in which funding is provided to local authorities. I know that some would prefer capital funding for local councils to be ringfenced, and I have some sympathy with that argument, but the funding is not strictly speaking ringfenced in law. What happens is that, in providing it, the Department makes it clear to all local authorities that it expects every penny to be spent on highway maintenance activities. If there is any evidence that it is not, the Department makes it clear that it reserves the right to reduce future grant payments to the authority.

Those new reporting requirements that we are imposing as part of Network North will also allow the public as well as Members of this House to hold their local authorities to account to ensure that we have proper use of the funding. We want to introduce proper, democratic accountability for taxpayer-funded repairs to roads and upgrades to potholes, so that there is proper accountability and we can ensure that this funding is being spent properly.

My hon. Friend also made an important point about the way in which the current funding formula works. He argued that it should take account of traffic volumes as well as road lengths, to reflect the fact that urban roads generally carry more traffic and therefore need more maintenance than lightly trafficked rural roads. I accept that this is a potential argument and it is one that he makes with great eloquence, although others have pushed back and, representing a highly rural community with thousands of miles of roads, I fully understand the alternative argument.

The funding formula methodology was created following a public consultation in 2014. Traffic volumes and different types of traffic certainly contribute to road wear and tear, but there are other factors, such as the weather, that can cause roads to deteriorate. The Department has no immediate plans to change the formula, and we would not do so without consultation with local authorities. That would unquestionably be required. Any change would result in winners and losers across the country, which would without a shadow of a doubt be a matter of concern to many Members of the House and to individual local authorities. The most important thing the Department can do is to increase the overall funding amount to benefit all local highway authorities, and this is what we have announced with the Network North plan. Obviously, as always in this House, we take on board the comments made by my hon. Friend, and this is part of the ongoing debate and consideration, but I stress that it is not our intention to proceed down that route at the moment.

My hon. Friend raised specific roads—I think Gloucester Road was one that he mentioned—and I take those points on board. Clearly, good-quality roads are essential, upgrade is important and the good maintenance of the roads is vital. We are working with local highway authorities in England and National Highways to assess the condition of road surfaces, but we are also working with the British Standards Institute and the Transport Research Laboratory to develop a new standard for assessing road condition which will help councils to deal with road defects more effectively.

We are also encouraging the use of new technologies into the market, one of which is the famous Pothole Pro that my hon. Friend mentioned, which was developed in his area. It is a genuinely innovative way ahead for dealing with this, and I greatly look forward to getting involved with it. I am trying to persuade the Department to find me the appropriate bit of machinery that I will then drive to address his particular problem. There are some health and safety issues that I have to overcome, but he will understand that it is a mission with which I am shortly to engage.

We want to reduce the time that drivers lose, and the stress that they experience, due to roadworks. We are also making it quicker and easier for local councils to establish lane rental schemes, and we are consulting on requiring local authorities with such schemes to use at least half of any surplus funds on pothole repairs. We are also helping councils to find innovative ways to look after their roads through the £30 million Live Labs programme run by the Association of Directors of Environment, Economy, Planning and Transport, which will try new, environmentally friendly ways of managing and maintaining local roads in various parts of the country.

Through Live Labs, we are testing a wide range of different highways materials to support the move towards net zero carbon for local roads and infrastructure. My hon. Friend will be aware of the plan for drivers, which the Government announced in the autumn. We are not only trying to support motorists in a variety of individual ways, as set out in the plan, but we are using taxpayers’ money to support local authorities with record increases in funding. There has never been such funding.

The Government are putting in place transformational new funding to maintain the local road network over the next 11 years, with significant uplifts from the present basis. We are firmly on the side of the motorist, and I welcome my hon. Friend’s comments.

Question put and agreed to.