Rail Strikes

Ruth Edwards Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Ruth Edwards (Rushcliffe) (Con)]

As has been said, there is only one question that each and every Member of this House needs to ask themselves today: “Whose side am I on?” On the Conservative Benches, we are on the side of the British public and our constituents—workers trying to get to their jobs, the businesses that rely on them to be there, students travelling to sit their GCSE exams, and veterans wanting to mark Armed Forces Day. Over the pandemic, our constituents supported our railways with £600 from every family in the UK, because public money is not Government money; it is our constituents’ money.

It is now time for the rail unions to support our constituents by accepting that working patterns and demand for rail travel have changed. Our constituents cannot continue to subsidise the status quo when passenger numbers are down by three quarters and 94% of commuters are not going back to commuting five days a week. The way we all work and the jobs we do are changing at a faster and faster pace. No sector is immune. We need to be honest with workers. We do not hide from modernising the railways because it is difficult; we are making huge investments in massive infrastructure projects, overhauling ticketing, putting more staff on platforms, and reopening closed routes.

Conservative Members of Parliament will vote to support our constituents today, but what will Labour Members do? Will they side with their constituents or with their union barons? I accept that it is hard for them to bite the hand that feeds them. The RMT donated nearly £250,000 to the Labour party in the last decade, so why would Labour Members vote to condemn rail strikes when they are on the union gravy train? Today, they have a chance to prove where their loyalties lie. Whose side are they on?

International Women’s Day

Ruth Edwards Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Ruth Edwards (Rushcliffe) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) for securing this debate, which is always moving, inspiring and wide-ranging.

We have quite rightly reflected on the horror that Putin’s war in Ukraine is inflicting on women there, which was demonstrated in last night’s barbaric bombing of a maternity hospital. The haunting speech of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) reminds us—as it does every year—of the many women who are not with us to celebrate International Women’s Day today. Among them this year is my constituent Clair Abelwhite whose murder has shocked the rural community of Colston Bassett in Rushcliffe. The case is ongoing and an arrest has just been made, so I will not be discussing it any further today, but I did want to put it on record that my thoughts and prayers are with her friends and family, especially with her small children.

My hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho) also brought up the achievements of women in STEM, and I will be asking her to feature in my campaign for British Science Week next week, when we are profiling some of the brilliant women who have STEM careers, and I hope to encourage more women and girls into those.

Today, I want to celebrate the achievements of an incredible group of women—female entrepreneurs—whose energy, dynamism, creativity and sheer bloody hard work create new jobs and grow our economy. The UK set a new record last year: 140,000 women started their own businesses. In total, 20% of new firms are now led by women, but—and there is a but—it is estimated that only 1% of venture capital goes to female entrepreneurs.

I want to call out two brilliant women in Rushcliffe—Sarah King and Claire Dunn of “we are radikl”. They decided that this had gone on for far too long and are trying to do something about it. As the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows) proved in her speech, if you want something done, get a woman to do it. They have started their “Over Being Underfunded” campaign to increase access to investment for female entrepreneurs. I went to see them last week—they have an office just down the road from mine. My right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) said that she loved a rebel. Well, they have a brilliant piece of artwork on their wall, which is called, “Rebels get results”. It is a fabulous print and I am looking at purchasing a copy for the Chief Whip, who, I am sure, will be delighted with it.

Their campaign has three main asks. The first is to extend the current timeframe from two years to three to secure the investment that is offered to entrepreneurs via the Government’s seed enterprise investment scheme. That extension would reflect, on average, the greater amount of time that women spend on caring responsibilities —it was twice as much as men during the pandemic—which obviously gives them less time to spend on their businesses, meaning that, sometimes, they take longer to scale. Women are also less likely than men to have access to investor networks, so it takes them longer to build those relationships.

The campaign is also asking for gender, race and ethnicity reporting to be introduced on the seed enterprise investment scheme, in terms of both the entrepreneurs it works with and the investors. Finally, it wants to see more support, mentoring and awareness campaigns targeting early-stage women entrepreneurs, because they know women are less likely to know about schemes such as SEIS and more likely to be up for mentoring and other similar types of support.

The “we are radikl” team hope that Ministers in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Treasury will engage with the campaign, and that BEIS’s enterprise strategy, to be published later this year, will reflect its asks. They are doing so much to address the problem, building their own network of investors, Halo, and breaking down myths and perceived bias in the investor community. The Government commissioned the Alison Rose review in 2019, which identified a £250 billion boost to the UK economy through breaking down barriers to female entrepreneurs. However, we will not get very far if 99% of venture capital is passing female-led firms by. That is something the Government must turn their attention to now.

I welcome the huge amount of work the Government have done to get women into senior positions in business, and I am delighted that we are now second in the world for female representation on boards. That has increased by 50% in the past six years—as it should. We must now focus our attention on doing more to empower our female entrepreneurs. If we are to take advantage of the record number of female-led businesses founded last year, that must be a priority for us.

I wish a happy International Women’s Day to Sarah, Claire and all the brilliant women they work with. I look forward to working with them and seeing the jobs and innovation that their businesses will bring to the UK. I hope Ministers will agree to meet us to learn more about the experience of the female entrepreneurs in the “we are radikl” network and that those experiences can be better reflected in the Government’s approach to supporting female entrepreneurs.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ruth Edwards Excerpts

Thursday 3rd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Wendy Morton]

As I explained earlier, we are working closely with the rail operators as they mitigate the impact of staff absences on rail services. Obviously, as restrictions are lifted and staffing pressures ease, operators will reinstate services to meet expected increases in passenger demand. I think it is fair to say that no timetable is ever static. As demand patterns continue to evolve while we recover from the pandemic, timetables must be flexible.

[Ruth Edwards (Rushcliffe) (Con)]

I welcome the massive investment this Government are making in the east midlands. They are electrifying the midlands main line as we bring HS2 from Birmingham to Nottingham. However, to benefit fully, my constituents need better trains to Nottingham. Will the Minister support my campaign for more trains on the Poacher line so that my constituents in villages such as Radcliffe-on-Trent can have the regular train service they need?

[Andrew Stephenson]

My hon. Friend rightly points out the massive investment going into the east midlands. I am sure the Rail Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton), will be more than happy to meet her to discuss the specific configuration of local services.

Electric Vehicles: Transition by 2030

Ruth Edwards Excerpts

Thursday 9th December 2021 Westminster Hall

[Ruth Edwards (Rushcliffe) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I congratulate the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) for securing this debate on such an incredibly important topic. I have to declare an interest: I am the owner of an electric car. I also called for the Government to move their target for phasing out petrol and diesel vehicles forward to 2030, so I was absolutely delighted to see that in the Prime Minister’s 10-point plan.

As an early voice in favour of bringing the target forward, I heard many reasons why it would be absolutely impossible to do so. They ranged from the availability of minerals to the higher cost of electric cars, the strain on the electricity supply, range anxiety and the lack of a public charging network. None of those challenges is insurmountable, although they are certainly big challenges, as the hon. Members for Bath and for Easington (Grahame Morris) and my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Darren Henry) have set out. We have innovation in battery technology, and the hon. Member for Bath mentioned advances using silicon. Different models of car ownership, the Government’s plug-in car grant and smart charging regulations such as the ones currently before the House will all help to support the transition.

Today I want to focus on range anxiety and the public charging network. We trade a lot of facts and figures in this place, but I will focus on my own experiences as an electric car driver. I know that the Minister is an advocate of rolling out our EV infrastructure as fast as we possibly can, and I might have some ammunition to help her with that mission. I thought I would illustrate the issue using the experience of taking our electric car on holiday to Northumberland in the summer.

The first bit of advice I have for fellow Members, which is actually nothing to do with the public charging network, is do not go on holiday in a new car that has only just been delivered on the morning of your holiday, especially if you are used to driving a clunky old petrol-powered Land Rover and you have switched to an automatic electric MG. It does not do wonders for marital harmony, and nor does it make for a relaxing, stress-free break.

There were a worrying few moments when we thought we were going to have to reverse the entire way to Northumberland, which with a journey time of three and a half hours would have been quite a feat, but after a few minutes poking around with the controls, we did actually manage to start going in a forward direction, and we were off up the A1.

We pulled in at Ferrybridge services, plugged in and went for lunch feeling smug. This is easy! We can do this! We returned to find that absolutely no charge had been transferred to the car. Oh dear! Were we being silly, as the electric car newbies? No, the gentleman next to us—a veteran electric car user—was also having difficulty. The chargers were clearly out of order. “Never mind,” we thought. “Can’t work every time.”

So off we went to the next services at Wetherby. We plugged in to one of the chargers, and that charger seemed to be broken too. We phoned the charge point operator’s 24-hour hotline and they reset the entire system for us. They said, “It should be working now.” The only problem was that it was not. They said, “There must be a problem with the car.” Panic! We do not have enough charge to go forward, we do not have enough charge to go back and, lovely as Wetherby services is, I did not really want to spend my holiday there. So we phoned the car dealership, and lots of people were running round in the dealership in Portsmouth freaking out that the car they had sold us, which could be charged, now suddenly could not be charged.

Twenty minutes later, when one of the other chargers came free, I said to my husband, “Let’s have one more go.” We plugged in and it worked. So it was not us and it was not the car, but two out of three electric chargers at motorway service stations did not work. I just could not believe it—imagine if two thirds of the petrol pumps we tried to use at a petrol station were not working.

So off we went. There was not a charger at our hotel, so we tried to use the one in the local village next morning, except someone was using it. Our Zap-Map showed that there were three chargers in Hexham, so off we pootled. We found two charging points, both of them wrapped in thick black shrink plastic. Had they just arrived? Were they leaving? Who could tell? But we certainly could not use them to charge our car. We finally tracked down another one outside Waitrose, but that was not working either. So there were three chargers, and not one of them was working. We managed to find one in the end—the one in the village became free.

The next day we went up to Hareshaw Linn, with its beautiful waterfall. We had a lovely walk—I thoroughly recommend it. Waves of joy and relief broke over us as we arrived in the car park to find a charger that was free and that appeared to be working—but how did it work? It looked like a bollard. There were no instructions on it. I could not work out how to get the plug out or anything. All that was written on it was, “Please present a tag to charge.” Hmm, where was I going to find a tag, even if I had a description of what one was, in the middle of Northumberland national park?

The name Electro was emblazoned on the side, so we looked it up and called it on our phone. We gave it the number of the machine, but the company could not find it on its system, and neither could the app, so we could not use that one either. We then found a sticker—maybe it was BP Pulse—but the app would not take our debit cards so, again, that was a complete write-off. We did manage to find some charging points throughout Northumberland that did actually work on our holiday, so we did get around.

Then, on our way back, we stopped off again at Wetherby services—that place where we nearly spent the entire week. There was a queue of six cars to use the chargers. Assuming an average charge time of 20 minutes, we would have had to wait two hours just to charge the car, so we would have been there for two hours and 20 minutes or two and a half hours. That is almost as long as the entire journey, so off we went to the lovely village of Boston Spa, which I thoroughly recommend, and there we were confronted with an Engie EV charger. Again, to charge, we had to give our names, our address and our contact details before we could register to pay and charge. Can you imagine the chaos if that happened at the petrol pumps, Mr Twigg?

I do not want to give the impression that the unfortunate set of circumstances that I have described happens to us every day. We do manage to get around in the car. We normally charge at home and we do not have any issues, but as has been pointed out—

[Derek Twigg (in the Chair)]

Order. Can I ask the hon. Member to wind up, please?

[Ruth Edwards]

As has been pointed out, lots of people do not have the option of charging at home, so I have three asks: first, more chargers at key points, such as motorway service stations; secondly, a ban on using apps to pay for charging—people should be able to pay with debit cards; and thirdly, on service expectations around reliability, if people are taking their car out, they have to be able to have a reasonable level of confidence that they will be able to drive it home again. Those are my three asks for the Minister.

Rail Investment and Integrated Rail Plan

Ruth Edwards Excerpts

Wednesday 8th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Ruth Edwards (Rushcliffe) (Con)]

I feel privileged to speak in this debate, not simply because this fantastic £96 billion investment in rail is transformational for huge swathes of our country, and not just because we have sped up existing plans by around 15 years to bring real benefits to places such as my constituency of Rushcliffe. No—I feel particularly privileged because this debate gives us the chance to examine the habits and the utterances of that rare species, the Starma chameleon.

For years, the Leader of the Opposition has manned the barricades in opposition to HS2. He said that he opposes HS2

“on cost and on merit: it will not achieve its stated objectives.”—[Official Report, 15 September 2015; Vol. 599, c. 1006.]

He called its impact devastating and said it would cause “wholly unacceptable damage”. However, all of a sudden, the Government have not gone far enough. Suddenly he believes that the plans are

“a second-class option for the North”

and the midlands. If the Leader of the Opposition had had his way, the people of Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Birmingham and Sheffield would not have had high-speed rail at all, but perhaps it only matters when it is in his own backyard—hardly prime ministerial.

The integrated rail plan delivered on a commitment to level up regional connectivity by electrifying the midland main line, and electrification work is set to begin in the next phase, before Christmas. These improvements will be welcomed by my constituents, who, because of the plan, will find it a lot easier to commute and undertake other travel by train. Indeed, in my inbox, praise for this plan far outweighs criticism. As the Secretary of State and my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Robbie Moore) have said—in fact, as has been said repeatedly—the last Labour Government electrified 63 miles of track in 13 years. An ordinary British garden snail moving at a top speed of 0.048 kph would have made more progress.

Colleagues may be surprised to hear that the Leader of the Opposition and I have something in common: we both represent constituencies containing planned HS2 stations, the only difference being that I did not petition against this massive upgrade to, and investment in, rail in my constituency. The integrated rail plan will deliver HS2 faster. It will slash train journey times between London and Nottingham by two thirds, and the journey time from Nottingham to Birmingham to only 26 minutes, which is half an hour faster than envisaged under previous plans. It will deliver HS2 right into the heart of the East Midlands freeport, where we are making a green jobs hub that will create over 60,000 jobs in the region.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ruth Edwards Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Chris Heaton-Harris)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. There is a huge amount of new rolling stock coming on to the Northern network, which will take off all the Pacers by the end of May. However, I would be delighted to meet him to talk about those issues, because there is a job of work to be done.

[Ruth Edwards (Rushcliffe) (Con)]

T8. A number of my constituents in rural areas of Rushcliffe have difficulty getting buses to towns such as Melton and Loughborough. I am pleased that the Government announced a £20 million fund to trial on-demand bus services in rural areas last year. Can my hon. Friend update me on the timetable for making that funding available and how communities can apply?

[Ms Ghani]

Absolutely. We are investing £220 million to ensure that we have much better bus services in our urban and rural areas. Like my hon. Friend, I represent a rural constituency. We have set aside £20 million for demand-responsive buses. I believe that an announcement will be made next month, which is just a few days away. In the meantime, I suggest that she look at organisations such as Arriva, which is providing fantastic demand-responsive buses, so that her community knows what sort of pitch to put in.