Infrastructure Bill [Lords]

Roger Williams Excerpts

Monday 26th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Roger Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire) (LD)]

rose—

[Stephen Williams]

I give way to my fellow Williams.

[Roger Williams]

My hon. Friend said that the Welsh Government had not taken full advantage of the Localism Act. In my constituency, and in Wales in general, pubs enjoy the full protection of the planning law, and that includes a real presumption against the closure of the last pub in the village. Is the situation similar in England?

[Stephen Williams]

Yes. That is exactly the position with which we are familiar all over the country. I have visited several pubs in England that have been listed as assets of community value precisely because they are “the last pub in the village”. I urge my hon. Friend, as well as the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards), to put pressure on the Welsh Government to ensure that not only planning protections but “asset of community protections” are in place.

England-Wales Transport Links

Roger Williams Excerpts

Wednesday 6th February 2013 Westminster Hall

[Roger Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams) on calling this important debate. It is a privilege to have a UK Minister with responsibility for transport, particularly in England, here to respond to points that we make about our connectivity across the border.

The issue is especially relevant to my constituents, as Brecon and Radnorshire covers almost a third of the Welsh border with England but is relatively poorly served by transport connections between the two countries. The A44 and A438 are key east-west routes connecting Leominster in the north of Herefordshire to Rhayader, and Hereford with Brecon. It is always a bit of a disadvantage for me to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies), because he makes many of the points that I would like to make. However, I should like to reinforce those points.

These trunk roads are the busiest in my constituency and are managed by the Welsh Assembly Government through a partnership between Powys and Ceredigion county councils, but they still require an input and funding from the English Highways Agency, to maximise the benefits of any improvements that are to be made. That can be a problem, as I have highlighted before with my Assembly colleague, Kirsty Williams, because priorities in England are continually focused on the larger conurbations. Consequently, priorities do not match up and inputs and funding are inadequate to make changes that are essential for road safety and making general improvements to our economic development.

The A483 Pant to Llanymynech bypass scheme was considered by the West Midlands Regional Transport Board as part of the regional prioritisation in 2006, in which the region considered the relative priority of major schemes in the region. The board advised that this scheme was a low priority due to its low cost-benefit score and the modest contributions it was thought to make towards economic development and housing in the area. Following the decision of the West Midlands Regional Transport Board in 2006, the scheme was reviewed to assess whether its cost could be reduced while maintaining a substantial proportion of its benefits. However, due to the route’s not being deemed a priority, that study concluded that possible small-scale solutions along the route would still offer poor value for money. Consequently, the Highways Agency was instructed by the Minister to stop developing the scheme altogether and that it could be revisited in future only if the West Midlands Regional Transport Board decided that it was a priority. Finally, in May 2012, the Government announced a series of schemes that would be developed to enable potential construction in the next spending review. This scheme was not selected and no work is currently being undertaken by the Highways Agency.

The A40, which travels through my constituency and forms a section of the unsigned Euroroute E30, has been described by the Welsh Assembly Government as

“one of the lowest standard sections of the Trans European Road Network in the United Kingdom”,

because of prioritisation discrepancies between England and Wales.

We still require a reciprocal agreement between England and Wales on bus passes. At the moment, Welsh residents can travel only on buses that start or finish their journey in Wales—likewise, English passengers. For example, consider passengers on a bus journey from Hay-on-Wye to Hereford. Hay is intersected by the Herefordshire border, which is also the Wales-England border, but due to bus passes being issued by Powys county council in Wales, those passengers are not able to travel to Hereford without being charged a small fee for doing so.

For many the bus is a lifeline, not only in respect of health, but for those who need to travel for specialist treatment and for jobs, and suchlike, in Hereford and Shrewsbury. My colleague in the Welsh Assembly, Kirsty Williams, inquired into this matter in 2010, asking Ieuan Wyn Jones, then Minister with responsibility:

“Will the Minister make a statement on what discussions he has had recently with the UK Government and Scottish Government about the harmonisation of the concessionary bus pass schemes in England, Scotland and Wales across the United Kingdom?”

Ieuan Wyn Jones answered:

“I have had no recent discussions with UK and Scottish Government Ministers about the harmonisation of concessionary bus travel schemes across the UK.”

I ask the Minister, have there been any discussions on this important matter?

Turning briefly to rail matters, my hon. Friend the Member for Ceredigion stressed the need for better train services. I am delighted that Network Rail’s 10-year, £1 billion modernisation plan for Wales’s somewhat antiquated line is about to take place, and the £220 million electrification of the valleys line will bring a lot of benefit, but we need to make a start on the electrification of the London to Cardiff line, which will also reduce journey times to Swansea. I am pleased to see the inclusion of a scheme to re-signal the critical Marches route between Newport and Shrewsbury, which will provide train companies with the ability to run more frequent and faster trains between north and south Wales, serving a number of my constituents. I am by no means calling for a reversal of Dr Beeching’s axe of 1963, but the reshaping of the rail network in Wales will still leave large towns in my constituency, such as Brecon and Ystradgynlais, without any connection. People from those towns will have to travel 20 miles to reach a railway station.

I am sometimes told that the people living in Painscastle and Rhosgoch in my constituency take longer to get to New York than anyone living in any other part of the UK. Isolation and peripherality—if that is a word—are not only a perception for the people I represent, but a reality. Small changes, however, could make a real difference to their lives.

Cost of Motor Insurance

Roger Williams Excerpts

Tuesday 8th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Roger Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire) (LD)]

I welcome this opportunity to speak in the debate. I want to say a few words about young drivers, the insurance industry and Government policy. I have some sympathy with the excellent points about why the industry is being pushed into charging ever higher premiums, but the premiums young people are charged are very high indeed. Many would argue that that is for good reason. Premiums have been quoted this evening of £2,700 for a newly qualified male driver. I shall quote a few statistics that might substantiate that.

One in five young drivers will have an accident in their first six months on the road, and 17 to 24-year-olds make up 12% of insured drivers but 25% of claims. An 18-year-old is three times more likely to be involved in a car accident than a 48-year-old, and young drivers tend to be involved in more serious accidents than older people, with the average claim for a younger driver being three times more than that for older drivers. Men between the ages of 17 and 20 are seven times more likely to be killed or seriously injured on the road than all male drivers. I thank the road safety charity Brake for supplying me with that information. There is a clear cost to insuring young drivers.

More tragically, every year 3,300 young drivers and passengers are killed or suffer life-changing injury as a result of road crashes. In rural areas there is a lack of public transport so young people need to drive, and I am absolutely not discouraging them from doing so. Many wish to have the opportunity of independence from their parents and, not having public transport, take to driving, but we must ensure that young people are as safe as possible, not just for their sake but for passengers and other road users and pedestrians.

In my constituency in 2006 we had the tragic loss of life of four young girls on Llangynidr mountain, and this summer a young girl from Hay-on-Wye was killed in a neighbouring village in Herefordshire. Many of these tragedies can be avoided. I have worked with Brake and with Sarah Jones of Cardiff university on graduated driving licences, whereby restrictions are placed on newly qualified drivers. The proposals supported by Brake are, first, a restriction on the number of young passengers in the car. Often the excitement of first going out and having friends in the car leads to reckless and ill-considered driving. There should be no driving for young newly qualified drivers between 11 pm and 6 am, unless for work purposes. There should be zero tolerance of alcohol, and no driving on motorways. This is not a radical plan. Countries with a form of graduated driving licence include New Zealand, Australia, much of Canada and 48 of the American states.

[Mrs Ellman]

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the Transport Committee considered this issue in the previous Parliament and made precisely the same recommendation as he is making now? The then Government did not respond positively; perhaps this Government will.

[Roger Williams]

I was aware of the report, and I have met the Minister in this Government. While he understood my good intentions, he was not able to reciprocate positively.

[Jonathan Evans]

Rather than go down the route of legislation, might it not be a helpful preliminary step if the insurance industry reduced the premium provided that people accepted the proposals he has made on driving behaviour? That would not require legislation and might ultimately encourage better driving habits.

[Roger Williams]

That was precisely the comment that the Minister made to me. I commend the work of Co-operative Insurance and other insurance companies, which have come up with their own graduated driving licence scheme. A smart box in the insured car monitors many aspects of the driver’s habits, including speed, cornering and the time the car is driven. The driver is given a quarterly cashback payment according to their driving score. The data collected from a sample of 1,300 young drivers show that almost four in five consistently drive within the speed limits, and 40% of males and 41% of females achieved the top score in all categories.

So either through Government policy or by persuading insurance companies to take up similar measures, we can reduce the number of accidents on the road. That will not only bring down the costs of everyone’s insurance premium but, far more important, prevent many fatalities on our roads.

--- Later in debate ---

[John McDonnell]

It is almost like the policy of excess that has been developed for other insurance costs. I believe that the onus is now on the Government to bring the insurance companies in for a thorough discussion about how we can take forward voluntary arrangements. However, there will come a time, which I believe we are nearing, when if we cannot get in place voluntary arrangements and incentives that work, we will have to introduce regulation.

Like many other Members, I cannot cope any more with driving along the road and seeing shrines to people who have died. The number in my area seemed to be peaking at one point, although I have not looked at the recent statistics. A large number of young people were being killed on the roads, and we would drive down the road and see the bouquets of flowers and the pictures of those young people. It relates to the point that the hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) made about youthful exuberance—young people get their first car and are out on the roads, and sometimes it goes to their heads. They might have their friends with them, and unfortunately it often results in tragedy.

[Roger Williams]

The hon. Gentleman is making a very powerful case. I know that the hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) made a point about a restriction of freedom, but surely that is the whole point of a driving licence. People have to pass a test, and maybe there ought to be another test for them to pass before they can have unlimited access to a car.

[John McDonnell]

It is true that we need to consider a whole range of measures. I believe that we need to make another attempt to find voluntary arrangements with the insurance companies, setting out a range of activities that people can sign up to and that we can technically monitor. In that way, we could reduce insurance premiums. However, if that is not brought to fruition, we may well have to move on to regulation. That could mean more testing, and in fact that extra testing need not just be for young people. It could be much wider than that, because it is not just young people who are affected, even though the statistics that the insurance companies produce demonstrate the high number of accidents among young drivers in their first couple of years after passing their test.

In addition, if regulation is to be introduced, and if it involves imposing technical solutions, the insurance companies should bear some of the cost. If it is not willing to work with us in promoting voluntary solutions effectively, it should bear the cost.

To return to an earlier point, this is about reducing costs, but it is also about reducing deaths and accidents. That does not just involve young people, because collateral damage is also done to pedestrians and others. The House has addressed that significant issue effectively in the debate tonight, and now it is over to us to work with the Government to get the insurance companies to agree a strategy that we can monitor over the coming year or so. We can see whether that works, and take legislative action if it does not, to demonstrate our seriousness.

Intercity Express and Rail Electrification

Roger Williams Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. A lot of Members wish to get in on this statement, so single and short questions would be welcome.

[Roger Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire) (LD)]

In the face of gloom, doom and whingeing from the Opposition, this is really good news for Wales. St David’s day will be toasted with a full glass in Cardiff and a nearly full glass in Swansea. I am pleased that the Secretary of State said that he will continue to review the case for electrification to Swansea. Will he confirm that he will do so?

[Mr Hammond]

As I have said, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales and I will continue actively to look at the case for electrification to Swansea. I said that we would do so in the light of developing service patterns. The important point is that once the valleys lines are electrified, it is quite possible that new electric services could be provided that head through Cardiff and to the west, which might change the economics, and thus the business case, for the Cardiff to Swansea section.

Rail Investment

Roger Williams Excerpts

Thursday 25th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I shall be very happy to accept such representations. I talk regularly to the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Phil Wilson) about these things. I was in the north-east last week and met some representatives of local authorities there. However, my hon. Friend will understand that the European procurement directive imposes a framework of rules around what we can and cannot do in a procurement such as this.

[Roger Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire) (LD)]

The Secretary of State may be interested to know that journey times between Cardiff and London Paddington actually increased during the 13 years of Labour Governments. I am pleased that my right hon. Friend is working closely with the Welsh Assembly to build a business case for the electrification of the main line. Will he also meet Welsh Members of Parliament and Welsh Assembly Members so that they can help him with his homework before he comes to a conclusion about this important decision for the Welsh economy?

[Mr Hammond]

I shall be very happy to do so. I assure the hon. Gentleman that whichever of the two options under consideration is chosen, quite independently of the question of electrification, that will deliver a saving on the journey time to Cardiff that will get us back firmly below two hours.