Asylum Reception Centre: Linton-on-Ouse
Debate between Robert Goodwill and Kevin Hollinrake(2 years, 6 months ago)
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Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
I very much appreciate this opportunity to debate on the Floor of the House the asylum seeker reception centre at Linton-on-Ouse. I must say that although the Home Office has been willing to engage on this issue, the approach it has taken has been pretty much an abuse of power. It has been indifferent all the way along. The approach has been very insensitive and quite uninformed in terms of the issues that we see on the ground.
I would summarise the proposals as a convenience, in that the availability of a site has taken precedence over its suitability. The site is simply not fit for the purpose outlined for it. A key indicator of that is that until now I have not been able to find—I am sorry to say this; I have hunted through Home Office and Cabinet Office Ministers, Secretaries of State and officials—anybody willing to take ownership of the decision and say that it is the right thing to do. No Member of Parliament or Minister has come up to me to say that they believe that this is the right place to put the facility.
Of course such a facility is always going to be controversial; I quite understand that. As I will touch on in a second, this is not about nimbyism. To put right at the heart of a village of 600 people a facility that will ultimately have a capacity of about 1,500 young single men between 18 and 40, coming from different cultures and different parts of the world—Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Eritrea—is absolutely disgraceful. I have lived all my life about six or seven miles away from the village, and I know many people in it. In North Yorkshire, we are lucky to have a great deal of freedom—that is what we are used to. But the people of Linton-on-Ouse will have those liberties taken from them as a result of this policy.
Sir Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that if a developer were to try to build a development of such a size on the edge of such a village, they would be laughed out of court?
Kevin Hollinrake
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I very much appreciate his support and that of many other colleagues; this debate is well attended for an Adjournment debate, which I very much appreciate.
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right: the issue is not race or nimbyism, but scale—the whole facility is way out of scale for this development, as he says. I am talking about the simple liberties that we take for granted: walking to the village shop, sending a child to walk to the village school or playground, walking the dog alone in the morning or evening—all those liberties that have been pretty much taken for granted in Linton-on-Ouse will be taken from its residents. I do not think it is putting it too strongly to say that those residents are the sacrificial lambs to a national policy. That cannot be right and it cannot be something that the Minister will countenance.
Trans-Pennine Rail Travel and Delays
Debate between Robert Goodwill and Kevin Hollinrake(6 years, 3 months ago)
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Kevin Hollinrake
The hon. Lady makes some good points. There are longer term benefits to some of the work. It has been poorly executed, but I can speak only for my constituency, where, in the longer term, we will see a doubling of rail journeys between York and Scarborough. That is good news, but in the short term the delays are totally unacceptable.
Other issues have combined to make the situation even worse, such as the incomplete signalling works at Leeds station and significant congestion on Manchester services. As things were seemingly getting better—we had a meeting with TransPennine Express, which improved the rosters of its drivers—further disruptions were suddenly caused by a new policy to cut the number of late-running trains on the east coast main line. That policy prioritised trains and passengers travelling north to south over those travelling east to west.
Mr Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to talk about the problem with rosters. When a train is delayed arriving at York and bound through his constituency via Malton to Scarborough, often the driver does not have enough hours left to get back to York without having to get off the train at Seamer or somewhere else. I hope that a little leeway can be introduced into the rosters, so that drivers can cope with a slight delay.
Kevin Hollinrake
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right: operators can take a number of measures to reduce the impact of some of the problems.
To give some examples of passengers I have spoken to or corresponded with, one told me that, since the end of May, because of the new timetables, his train
“had been cancelled or delayed nearly every single day”.
Another complained:
“Whether I get to work now is a painful lottery.”
Another frustrated rail user described how, on one day, two trains were cancelled, with 100 people, including the elderly and infirm, left without warning on the platforms at Malton station. At Malton, there are no toilet facilities, and the café opens for only limited hours each day.