Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Foord Excerpts

Thursday 14th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Huw Merriman]

My right hon. Friend has been an absolute champion for that project, as have other hon. Friends present. We are keen to make progress. The Secretary of State and I were very keen to see the project brought in, which was possible only because of the Prime Minister’s decisions on Network North in October. We are looking to make rapid progress on it, and I have heard my right hon. Friend’s call and will work to that speed.

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

2. What steps he is taking to improve rail services.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Huw Merriman)]

The Government are committed to reforming the railways and ensuring that they are customer focused and commercially led, with the creation of Great British Railways to bring together infrastructure, operations and oversight of whole-industry finance. In the interim, the Department continues to hold the rail industry to account to deliver the punctual and reliable services that passengers and taxpayers deserve.

[Richard Foord]

In November last year, services on the west of England line out of London terminated at Axminster because of a land slip near Honiton. The same line has been closed for nine days this month, and passengers at Feniton are unable to travel to Exeter or London. Will the Minister ease the delays and cancellations for passengers in Honiton by dualling the track from Chard Junction to Axminster and adding a passing loop?

[Huw Merriman]

With the Prime Minister’s Network North commitment, £36 billion-worth of transport projects will be going ahead in other parts. I am happy to look at the project to which the hon. Gentleman refers. I should also mention that I am aware that there have been problems on the western and Wales routes, particularly those coming out of Paddington. The chief executive of Network Rail is also well aware of those problems and is taking action to ensure that we remedy the situation.

Road Humps and 20 mph Speed Limits

Richard Foord Excerpts

Tuesday 5th December 2023 Westminster Hall

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

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mr Robertson. I agree with several right hon. and hon. Members who have spoken in this debate: traffic cameras and speed limits should not be applied in a blanket fashion. I am a liberal partly because I believe in individual responsibility and partly because I believe that the state should not have overweening power and should not dictate what every single person must do.

[Robin Millar]

Would the hon. Gentleman consider crossing the Floor, in that case?

[Richard Foord]

I am grateful for the invitation. I think back to the new liberals at the beginning of the 20th century, who were very proud of the notion of the independence of the individual. However, they also recognised that there were times when the state does have to intervene to protect citizens. I want to talk about that sort of notion.

I would like to start with an anecdote. Ken Cooper lived in Newton Poppleford. During the Christmas period of 2020, he tried crossing a dark road; imagine a dark Devon rural road where the speed limit is 30 mph. He was walking across, in admittedly dark clothing. A car came along doing no more than 30 mph, and it killed him. It killed him on 23 December, which made for an absolutely tragic Christmas period for his family. If the traffic on that road had been travelling at 20 mph, he might have survived. His local councillor, Councillor Chris Burhop, pointed out to me last week that a collision with a pedestrian that occurs at 30 mph has a 47% likelihood of fatality or severe injury, but a collision that occurs at 20 mph has a 17% likelihood of fatality or severe injury.

That is just one illustrative example, but there are many others in my constituency. Since 2019, there have been 971 collisions in my constituency in which someone was hurt, including 246 this year alone. As a result, 12 people have lost their lives and 168 were seriously injured.

I did not anticipate this being an issue that was agitating many of my constituents until I went on a summer tour of village and town halls. I spoke to lots of residents and was struck by just how many villagers independently raised the matter with me. I represent a part of rural Devon where the towns and villages are on the coast or nestled in among the green countryside. Members will appreciate that Devon has one of the largest road networks in the country, and we use our cars every day to get around. It is false to distinguish between the interests of pedestrians and those of car drivers, or between those of cyclists and those of van drivers. We are one and the same—we use all modes of transport. As we do not tend to have facilities on our doorstep, we might drive to the supermarket rather than be able to walk to a local shop. If we commute, there probably will not be a bus for us, so we have to drive. Getting to school also often requires the use of a car. I do not like the idea that this is somehow a wedge issue where we pit urban pedestrians against rural car drivers, as it is just not that simple.

Obviously, on subsidiarity, local authorities should be trusted to rule on this issue. Clearly, local government is far better suited than national Government to weigh in, provided it has the resources to do so. Let me illustrate the point by referring to Devon County Council. In May, it announced that there would be six new 20 mph zones across the county, but 105 parishes applied to have a zone. It was reckoned that it would take £25,000 to introduce a zone—a change of speed limit—and Devon County Council could afford only six. When I went on my village hall tour, I spoke to villagers in Wilmington and Kilmington who have tried to cross the A35 and have found it next to impossible even just to get a bus on the other side of the road. These people are not typical agitators or rebellious people, but they are really cross about this. I had to get out to the villages and go to those village hall meetings to see the issue for myself.

What solutions are available? The one currently offered to residents in my part of Devon is Community Speedwatch. Although it is helpful to have local residents trying to enforce the speed limits that exist at the moment, that is sometimes just not enough. I have been out there with the Community Speedwatch group in Dulford, pointing speed cameras while receiving gestures from passing car drivers or van drivers who are perhaps pushing 45 mph in a 30 mph zone. This is partly about enforcement, but it is also partly about having a lower limit, because if someone is going to exceed a 30 mph limit, they might push it to 38 mph or 40 mph, but if they are going to exceed the limit in a 20 mph zone, that is more likely to result in their pushing it out to 26 mph or 28 mph. As we have heard, the survival chances improve markedly for every 1 mph reduction. Of course, we would like more enforcement of the zones we already have, such as the one at Dunkeswell, where residents do not feel the 20 mph zone is enforced by the police enough. However, the sheer existence of the zone means that people are driving less fast through that village, so if collisions happen, lives will have been saved.

I ask Members to note that I have deliberately not used the term “accident” in this debate, as there is no such thing. These things do not happen by sheer happenstance. This is about mistakes made, mostly by those involved in the collision—often, not by the pedestrian —but we also have a part to play in this process. It will not be an accident if we can intervene and give county councils like Devon the resources that they require to have proper speed limits in place.

To give another couple of examples, I went to the village halls in Colyford and Chardstock. I am proud that there are people in those villages who have a sense of civic duty such that they want to get involved in making their communities safer and more liveable.

To finish on a more optimistic note, last month, I joined the headteacher of Honiton Primary School at the school after he had spoken to his pupils and invited them, as a council, to come up with ideas for what they might like to do—their school council was allowed to put forward ideas. One bright youngster called Eleanor said that a speed hump ought to be put in outside the school. It was therefore a privilege to lobby the local council to introduce the speed hump and to join Eleanor and the headteacher at its opening. The speed hump will make a real difference to children and families at drop-off time at Honiton Primary School.

I thank the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) for securing this debate. I am grateful to have been able to present the views of the people I represent in Devon.

[Mr Laurence Robertson (in the Chair)]

We now come to the Front-Bench speeches.

Zero-emission Vehicles, Drivers and HS2

Richard Foord Excerpts

Monday 16th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

On the second point, which is very important for the hon. Gentleman’s constituents, all outstanding claims for land that has already been acquired for phase 2 of HS2 will still be paid. Applications that are in progress will be handled on a case-by-case basis after consultation with the claimants, because people may well have made plans based on the land being purchased and it is important that we follow through on that, so there will be proper consultation with claimants before we make decisions to try to do the right thing by the people affected. The Ivanhoe line is going to be delivered.

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

I welcome sincerely the news of the Secretary of State’s support for Cullompton railway station. It is not new, given that my predecessor as MP for Tiverton and Honiton, Neil Parish, secured restoring your railway funding for Cullompton station two years ago. At that time, Neil said that

“construction could take place as early as 2024”;

will the Secretary of State tell my constituents whether Cullompton station is still on track to open in this Parliament?

[Mr Harper]

It is very important, when projects are promised, that we have the funds to pay for them, and it is by cancelling the second phase of HS2 that we are able to fund that important project, which I am glad the hon. Gentleman welcomes. I do not think that the rail Minister and I, in the time we have been in post, have had any communication from the hon. Gentleman campaigning for the station, whereas my hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Simon Jupp) has campaigned for it assiduously, as has my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow).

Railway Ticket Offices

Richard Foord Excerpts

Wednesday 13th September 2023 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Davies. In rural communities like the one where I live in Devon, ticket offices play a role that extends way beyond selling tickets. By being able to speak to a real person and talk through journey options, it means that people can avoid online vendors ripping them off. I would like to hand my platform over to a couple of constituents who have written to me about how the changes will affect the four stations in my constituency: Axminster, Honiton, Feniton and Tiverton Parkway.

I received an email from Marian. She lives with a visual impairment and is deeply concerned about how these changes will impact her and other people who are blind or partially sighted. She wrote to me:

“Without ticket offices, we will have to purchase tickets online or through vending machines at stations. These are often inaccessible, so improving this basic accessibility should be the first priority, not ticket office closures.

Ticket Office staff are usually my first point of contact at my local…station where staff are exceptionally knowledgeable and helpful, taking time and trouble to be as informative as possible.”

[Chris Loder]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one of the bizarre things about the proposal affecting Axminster is that its station will actually get more staffing hours rather than a reduction?

[Richard Foord]

People who live in Axminster recognise that the station will be poorly served, and they as constituents will be poorly served by the changes. They will mean that blind and visually impaired people such as Marian will not know where to go in the station concourse.

Another constituent, Josie, describes herself as an “active pensioner”. She wrote:

“The staff provide an invaluable service, giving accurate up-to-the-minute information especially during disruption of trains due to adverse weather, cows on the line, bridge damage, engineering work and strikes. They provide reliable advice in advance for other services and for fares. They print out timetables and have at hand leaflets for obtaining railcards.”

Those are just two testimonies, but they show the real, human impact of this appalling proposal to close ticket offices in rural places such as my corner of Devon.

Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Foord Excerpts

Thursday 13th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

I think the right hon. Gentleman fundamentally misunderstands. First, HS2 is a railway for the coming decades, not for the next few years. What happened during the pandemic should not affect the case for HS2. Also, he assumes that business travellers are the only people who will use HS2. It is true that business and commuter traffic is down following the pandemic, but we have seen leisure services rebound very strongly, with passenger numbers higher than they were pre-pandemic.

When I was in Japan recently, I saw that high-speed trains are not only used by business users; they are used by everyone who uses the railway. HS2 will free up enormous capacity for the right hon. Gentleman’s constituents on the west coast main line, and it will get more freight off the roads and on to our rail network. He should welcome all those things.

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

14. What steps he is taking to improve rail services.

[The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Mark Harper)]

Earlier this year, I set out my vision to modernise the railway industry as part of my Bradshaw address. This includes ambitions for a customer-focused, commercially led rail industry and the creation of Great British Railways as its new guiding mind. We continue to invest record sums in improving infrastructure and, just last week, I was pleased to officially open the latest phase of the south-west rail resilience programme at Dawlish, part of a £165 million investment to date, which I know the hon. Gentleman is about to welcome.

[Richard Foord]

The Secretary of State is right that I welcome the programme.

This week, the charity Devon in Sight sent an email to its supporters, including me, titled, “Proposed closures to Railway Ticket Offices.” The email about the consultation was short:

“Please find attached a letter from us detailing how you can make an objection.”

Why does the Secretary of State suppose that a Devon charity that looks out for blind people should presume that its supporters would want to object?

[Mr Harper]

I am not entirely certain exactly what the hon. Gentleman is asking. The rail Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman), set out the purpose of the rail companies’ proposals very well. The rail companies are consulting on the proposals, the purpose of which is to recognise the changed reality that most passengers purchase their tickets either online or from a ticket machine, and most of them do not go near a ticket office. It is about getting the staff out of offices and into the station, so they can support all passengers, including those who are older or disabled and who need assistance, rather than having them stuck in a ticket office. That is the point of the proposals, and there will be a detailed consultation. I am sure the hon. Gentleman will respond to the consultation, which the rail companies can take into account as they pursue their proposals.

Restoring Your Railway Fund

Richard Foord Excerpts

Tuesday 24th January 2023 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Cummins. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for facilitating the debate.

As an Opposition politician, I might not often be heard saying positive things about the Government or the governing party, but I want to say some warm words about the restoring your railway scheme, particularly as it has awarded £5 million towards the reopening of Cullompton railway station. The developments we have seen in Devon, including the reopening of the station at Okehampton, are excellent; I hope Cullompton will see the same railway renaissance as Okehampton has in the past couple of years.

I will set out why I think it will be beneficial to Devon to have a railway station at Cullompton and how that might also return some benefits to the Department for Work and Pensions. Cullompton railway station is one of 10 projects that received funding from the restoring your railway fund in 2020. The funding was delivered to Network Rail, which is developing a full business case for stations at Cullompton and Wellington. I know the Minister is aware of the initiative, not least because he kindly agreed at Transport questions last week to visit the site when he is next in the area. The Minister advised that I should work with people of all political colours in the local community on the programme, and he will be pleased to know that I am doing just that.

Cullompton had a railway station until 5 October 1964. The Beeching cuts, which we heard about from the hon. Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) and which mothballed Cullompton and many other railway stations that day, are looked back on with great regret from a 2023 vantage point. I suggest that they were also regretted by the then Government, because just 10 days after the closure of Cullompton railway station and other stations in Devon, the Conservative party, which had been in power for 13 years, was defeated and nearby seats fell to the Liberal party. There is still time to reinforce the current Government’s success in rail at Cullompton.

Recently, the right hon. Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride) was fortunate that the Dartmoor line was the first line to be reopened under the restoring your railway scheme. The restoration, which was announced in January 2018 when the right hon. Gentleman was Financial Secretary to the Treasury, has some parallels with Cullompton. Okehampton and Cullompton are both within commuting distance of Exeter and both have slightly more than 10,000 people currently living in and around each town.

Cullompton has characteristics that will be attractive to some of the Rail Minister’s colleagues in Government. It is a town with a tight labour market and currently has vacancies across a range of sectors, including retail, manufacturing and social care. In Cullompton, fewer than two in 100 people are unemployed, in contrast to the neighbouring city of Exeter, where unemployment is greater than 3%. There are thousands of people in Exeter who are registered unemployed and looking for work who would be able to find jobs in Cullompton were they able to commute there. That could reduce the cost of benefit payments to the Department for Work and Pensions, and represent excellent value for the taxpayer.

While Cullompton is already regarded as a key town for commuters, plans are afoot for Culm Garden Village, which will expand Cullompton by more than 5,000 houses and perhaps an additional 12,000 residents. The Minister will be aware that the population of the west country has grown faster than the population of England, but that is not a patch on the growth rate we will see in Cullompton, which is having a deleterious effect on people’s health. We already have an air quality management area designation in the town of Cullompton; having a station in the heart of the town should serve to reduce traffic on the congested B3181.

The Minister is a real champion for railway restoration. As a Back-Bench MP, he battled successfully for Battle, specifically the refurbishment of its railway station. As the Minister, last year he came to Devon to celebrate the new Dartmoor line having its 250,000th user, as referred to by the hon. Member for Torbay, and said in his speech at the time that the restoration

“has undone 50 years of damage”.

He is very welcome to visit us at Cullompton station to see how little work would be required to restore the station to its former glory and to transform a very friendly part of Devon into an environmentally friendly one.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Foord Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Huw Merriman]

My right hon. Friend makes a great campaign point, which I hear. Mayor Andy Street met the Secretary of State for Transport this week. We are passionate to ensure that we can deliver the services that she needs in her constituency and that are needed across the midlands as a whole.

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

My constituents learned today that they will not be receiving a Cullompton relief road as a result of the second round of levelling-up funding. They still have great hopes for easing congestion through the reopening of the Cullompton railway station, which is already in receipt of Restoring Your Railway funding. Will the Minister come to Cullompton to see the merits of the proposal?

[Huw Merriman]

I am keen to visit as many projects and potential projects as I can to help see the potential and how we can realise it. When I am in that part of the country, I would be very happy to visit. On the levelling-up fund bid, as somebody who was disappointed first time around but has managed to get better news the second time, I would encourage the hon. Member to continue to apply. If one works hard with people of all political colours in the local community, one will be amazed by what can happen.

Future of Rail Services

Richard Foord Excerpts

Tuesday 20th December 2022 Westminster Hall

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

Is the hon. Member aware of the very good example of rural connectivity with the recent reopening of Okehampton railway station in Devon? Is he also aware of the potential for rural connectivity at Cullompton railway station, which is also in Devon?

[Stephen Hammond]

Interestingly enough, in my first life in this place I was the Opposition spokesperson on railways for four years, and for two years I was the Minister for rail, so I know all about Okehampton station and what it might bring forward. That refers back to the point I made a moment ago that, with clear prioritisation of investment and the right incentives to operators, there is absolutely no reason why regional and local investment should not be seen to be just as important as national investment. Indeed, the point I made at the beginning, about rail being the key to regeneration and economic growth in a number of communities, underlines the point that the hon. Gentleman was making

.

Air Quality in Towcester

Richard Foord Excerpts

Wednesday 19th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dame Andrea Leadsom]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I was describing Towcester, a beautiful town in the heart of my South Northamptonshire constituency. It is an idyllic scene until the traffic starts. Most days, and sometimes all day, cars queue down the A5 Watling Street, which is the high street through Towcester. Buses cannot pass the cars parked either side, and worst of all, whenever the M1 or the M40 are up the creek, which can happen at any point during the day or night, we have heavy goods vehicles squeezing their way through the narrow gap between parked cars. They often have to drive on to the pavement with air brakes wheezing, tooting their horns to each other to signify, “You first.”, “No, you first.” I will never forget the day, when my son was 12, that we were walking past the town hall where the pavement narrows to only two feet wide. He dropped a ball into the road and leant out to catch it just as an HGV came past. I grabbed him, but if I had not, that would have been the end of him.

HGV drivers have little concern for busy families with pushchairs or elderly residents crossing the street with walking sticks. The only crossroads in the town is at the historic Saracens Head pub, mentioned in Charles Dickens’s, “The Pickwick Papers”. Back in the day, as a coaching inn, it would have been a beautiful stop-off point for travellers, but now, having a pint in its pub garden is akin to having a beer alongside several gallons of diesel fumes. This road is unbelievably unsuitable for the size and volume of traffic that is using it, and quite apart from the obvious dangers for cyclists and pedestrians, the traffic is having an appalling impact on Towcester’s air quality, noise levels and quality of life for residents.

Towcester has been in need of a ring road for probably 50 years, and since becoming MP for South Northamptonshire in 2010, resolving that issue has been one of my main local priorities. The beauty of the town drew the eye of Persimmon Homes, which agreed to build a relief road for the town, among other things, in return for planning permission for more than 2,000 new homes on the edge of Towcester. I am no nimby and neither are my constituents. The new housing has been welcomed, and new residents are enjoying the lovely independent retail offer of Towcester, as well as the stunning walks through parkland that used to belong to the Easton Neston estate. As always seems to happen in these situations, the houses are being built at breakneck speed, but after 12 years of my beating down the door of National Highways, the local council, the Department for Transport and Persimmon, we have somehow only managed to achieve a road to nowhere. I have a meeting with them all together once a month; everyone is keen to get the job finished, but as hon. Members can imagine, the sparks occasionally fly.

The relief road will ultimately join the A5 with the A43 as a bypass to the town centre. After years of negotiation, the DFT has agreed that signage will push traffic out of the town and on to the relief road. A new consultation is also under way to improve the look and feel of Towcester town centre and put traffic calming measures in place. The future for Towcester is promising, but that happy vision is probably the best part of two years away or more.

The centre of Towcester was declared an air quality management area as long ago as September 2005. Since then, pollution levels have steadily got far worse; they are currently well above the target level set by the Government. West Northamptonshire Council wrote to all residents of Watling Street and the surrounding areas in March 2021 about air quality, reminding them that their properties fall within an air quality management area and that they might wish to reduce the amount of air pollution to which they are exposed. I am absolutely certain that they all agree.

One of the specific measures that the council proposed was to keep windows adjacent to the road closed during peak traffic periods and to ventilate homes as much as possible through windows that face away from the primary traffic route. You can imagine how residents felt about that advice, Madam Deputy Speaker. Quite rightly, many constituents have contacted me to ask why help in the form of the relief road is not being expedited. They also want to know what we can do in the meantime to protect local people from the damage that is being done to their lungs.

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

Average levels of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease are higher in my part of Devon than across the rest of England. Congestion in Cullompton would be eased by a relief road and by the reinstatement of a railway station. Does the right hon. Member agree that railway stations and relief roads can improve air quality?