Crustacean Mortality in North-east England: Independent Expert Assessment
Debate between Robert Goodwill and Roger Gale(1 year, 10 months ago)
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Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)
I call the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee.
Sir Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)
The Labour party is perfectly entitled to its own opinions, but it is not entitled to its own facts, particularly scientific facts. Will the Minister thank the expert panel, who have pretty much ruled out dredging, and particularly capital dredging, which had not taken place for nine months before the mortality event occurred? Will he assure me that CEFAS will be the first agency to be mobilised should we see recurrences and that, if it can find crabs—perhaps there are some in the freezer from when it happened—more can be done to try to identify the pathogen, which obviously needs to be tracked down?
Agricultural Transition Plan
Debate between Robert Goodwill and Roger Gale(1 year, 10 months ago)
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Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)
I call the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee.
Sir Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)
As a farmer myself, I thank the Minister, following the taster that we had at the Oxford farming conference, for his further clarification of the way that agricultural transition will be delivered. We are now able to capitalise fully on the freedoms we have outside the European Union to tailor our agricultural policy not only to the needs and objectives of farmers, but to the objectives of taxpayers.
English agriculture is very diverse in land type, topography, altitude and size, with many smaller farms relying on the support they get from the taxpayer. Can the Minister reassure me that this support system will not only help those farmers who need to change the way they farm to make it more sustainable and ecologically diverse, but support those upland farmers in places such as the North Yorkshire moors who have been delivering for generations exactly the public good that we want them to deliver?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Robert Goodwill and Roger Gale(10 years, 9 months ago)
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Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)
Yesterday, the owner of Manston airport in Kent announced the proposed closure of that important airfield. Given that Manston has the fourth longest runway in the country and is a major diversion field and a search and rescue base, will the Secretary of State review the matter in the national interest to see how Manston may be kept open?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Robert Goodwill)
It certainly is disturbing news, given the importance that we place on regional airports. It is disappointing that Manston has not been able to attract some of the low-cost carriers that it hoped to, but I am certainly happy to meet my hon. Friend to see whether there is a way forward.
Rail Services (South-East England)
Debate between Robert Goodwill and Roger Gale(10 years, 10 months ago)
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Mr Goodwill
I fear we are digressing, Sir Roger, but my point was that I share the pain, given the level of ridership on those trains. The hon. Member for Lewisham East mentioned the 12-car trains and called for longer trains through her constituency. She will be aware that discussions are ongoing on a new Southeastern franchise, and I will ensure that her views are fed into that discussion, to see what can be done, although it is a busy stretch of railway and there are limits on the amount of rolling stock available. She also mentioned overrunning engineering works, which are a perennial problem that affect a number of lines up and down the country. We are aware of the possession overruns by Network Rail, but one cannot plan for unexpected situations, such as fires at signal boxes, suicides and copper theft, which result in disruption on the railway and Network Rail has little control over them.
The shadow Minister made a number of points and was very good at mentioning many prospective candidates, and I wish them well. It is true that Southeastern has cancelled many more trains than usual, particularly in December 2013. Cancellations for the previous five months were ahead of plan, and Southeastern has admitted that the problems in December could have been managed better. The spike in cancellations was due to staff and drivers not working overtime, as is normal, due to the poor weather. In addition, many drivers could not get to work due to disruption to roads and rail infrastructure. Southeastern said that it has learned lessons from the incident.
On the Thameslink upgrade, the plans are completely on track and it will be a phenomenal success, delivering a step change in capacity through central London from 2018.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford will know, the Department is planning a four-year direct award contract with Southeastern from October 2014, in accordance with the refranchising programme borne out of the Brown and Laidlaw reviews. As he will understand, I cannot go into the specifics, as we are due to enter negotiations with Southeastern in the coming months. I can, however, outline some of the expected service and performance benefits.
The new Kent franchise has been specifically designed with customer satisfaction at its heart. For that reason, an innovative performance regime, which contractually requires operator-funded investments where national passenger survey targets are not met, has been included. In addition, a financial incentive regime will be linked to the standard operator benchmarks of delay minutes, cancellations and train capacity, which are the contractual measures that I mentioned earlier. Attaching financial reward to customer satisfaction and operational performance is an essential element of the new franchise and is designed to drive passenger benefits and, ultimately, continued strong growth in rail travel.
Making performance more transparent is another aim of the new franchise. Southeastern currently reports an average monthly public performance measure, but in the new franchise, it will be required to publish PPM performance data by route, which addresses my hon. Friend’s point, in addition to its overall PPM average. We will discuss with Southeastern what other information can be published about customer experience. I expect that increased transparency will help passengers to make better-informed travel decisions and allow improvement strategies targeted by the operator on the worst-performing routes. Greater transparency will also enable my officials more effectively to challenge the operator’s delivery.
On timetable enhancements, Southeastern has consulted on a number of improvements for the new franchise, including extending Victoria to Dartford services later into the evening and all-day services between Deal and Sandwich and St Pancras. There is, of course, no guarantee that the proposed enhancements will be accepted by Network Rail, but they are under active consideration and demonstrate that Southeastern is responding to customer demand. Southeastern is also in discussions with Transport for London about extending Oyster services to Stratford International, Dartford and Swanley. Again, I cannot guarantee that the proposals will be realised in the current franchise or the direct award period, but they are under real consideration. Indeed, when I last met the Mayor of London and Sir Peter Hendy, they said that they were keen to roll out cashless payments for journeys into London, but I note my hon. Friend’s comment that that need not be facilitated by extending TfL’s empire into Kent.
In conclusion, we are aware of the issues that my hon. Friend has raised about this important commuter area. I assure him that we will maintain pressure on the operator both to exceed performance targets and to work with Network Rail to facilitate a step change in their performance. I am currently satisfied that Southeastern is committed to driving improvements, as evidenced by its efforts to secure an Office of Rail Regulation formal review with its industry partner, Network Rail. I hope that by outlining some of the Department for Transport’s plans for the four-year direct award period, I have shown that the Department is committed to driving real improvements in transparency, performance and customer satisfaction. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing performance on the Southeastern network to the attention of the House.
Sir Roger Gale (in the Chair)
Order. With the leave of the House and as we have the time, I will make an exception—this is exceptional—and invite Mr Johnson briefly to reply to the debate.