Oral Answers to Questions
Steve Yemm Excerpts(1 day, 17 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Steve Yemm (Mansfield) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Lilian Greenwood)
My hon. Friend is a great champion for his local constituents. We have provided an extra £500 million for councils this year to end the pothole plague, and the East Midlands combined county authority will receive almost £20 million extra, taking the total to £76 million. For Nottinghamshire to unlock its full uplift, it needs to show that it is following best practice and publish a report on its highways maintenance activities by the end of this month.
Hydrogen-powered Aviation
Steve Yemm Excerpts(1 week, 3 days ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Steve Yemm (Mansfield) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Sadik Al-Hassan) for securing this timely and very important debate.
My constituency of Mansfield is just a stone’s throw away from East Midlands airport, which is one of the UK’s key freight and passenger hubs. It is important not only to our local economy, but to many of my constituents, who use the airport to get away on family holidays. With climate change being a significant concern to many of my constituents, and with the instability of hydrocarbon-based aviation fuel pricing as a result of numerous factors, including global conflict, I very much welcome the consideration of hydrogen-powered aviation as a practical and vital path towards sustainable flight.
The east midlands has always been at the heart of British industry and innovation, and now we must be at the forefront of clean technology. Aviation accounts for around 7% of our carbon emissions and the figure is growing, but rather than grounding its progress, we need to power it differently. Hydrogen offers us a really tangible solution: it produces zero carbon emissions at the point of use, and has great potential to fuel short and medium-haul flights by the mid-2030s—exactly the kinds of routes that operate out of East Midlands airport.
Hydrogen has real, tangible benefits over other approaches such as sustainable aviation fuel and battery power. We are already seeing British companies—including companies local to me in the east midlands, such as Rolls-Royce, and ZeroAvia in the south-west, which is working with East Midlands airport—investing in hydrogen engines. I believe that the Government have a responsibility to at least consider supporting that transition, not only to meet our climate targets but to protect and grow jobs in aviation, engineering and logistics in the east midlands.
Let us not forget that our constituents all want cleaner skies and to reach net zero, but they also want the opportunity to travel. Hydrogen-powered aviation can potentially deliver both, but to develop the technology to do that, we need the right investment in infrastructure, and particularly in research and development. We can turn regional airports into hubs of innovation that are important for the regions, and create a new export market in green aviation technology—that is not pie in the sky thinking. It will take some work to achieve it, but it is practical and necessary.
We should back British innovation and cleaner aviation. Let us ensure that the east midlands, Britain and the UK lead the world with this new, exciting technology.
Road Safety and Active Travel to School
Steve Yemm Excerpts(2 months ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Steve Yemm (Mansfield) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Hobhouse. There are 33 MPs sat in this room participating in this very important debate. The same number of children aged seven and under are killed or seriously injured on our roads every three weeks. That shows the importance of the debate, and I know that Members from across the House will want to do everything they can to change that statistic.
The main point that I want to make in the seconds that I have left is that it is up to us and our communities to make sure that we always think creatively to help alleviate traffic problems. That needs to be part of the mix, including for formal traffic calming measures. We should not wait for a tragedy to force us to take action. I look forward to hearing what the Minister feels she can do to support the work that communities like mine are doing.