Low Traffic Neighbourhoods

Theresa Villiers Excerpts

Monday 20th May 2024 Westminster Hall

[Marsha De Cordova]

Absolutely. My hon. Friend makes the point that we must ensure that communities are brought along on this journey and that there are challenges that the Government have not addressed.

[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Marsha De Cordova]

I will make some progress.

Common complaints about LTNs have included the shifting of traffic to boundary or sacrificial roads, increased congestion, barriers for emergency services, worsening pollution and a negative knock-on effect on public transport. Many communities that have been impacted by traffic moving to densely populated areas are from poorer and black, Asian and ethnic minority backgrounds. One survey respondent described the impact, saying:

“The traffic was pushed out of [an] extremely wealthy [area] and onto the roads of the poor…The result was complete GRIDLOCK. The arterial roads remain highly congested to this day and it is horrible and stressful to be stuck in polluted traffic for hours on a journey that should take mere minutes.”

The introduction of LTNs has in some cases had a greater impact on disabled people, with 86% of those who responded to the survey saying that LTNs had a “negative” or “very negative” impact on them. Some of the concerns included the installation of bollards and planters, locked dropped kerbs, excessively longer journeys, which are not only inconvenient but lead to higher costs, and the failure to exempt blue badge holders from LTN schemes.

Increased travel times are not just mild inconveniences. Many disabled people often find commuting far more exhausting. In the most extreme cases, the added hassle caused by the longer journey time makes travel difficult, robbing them of the energy they need for when they arrive at their destination. Worryingly, travel times were also linked to the increased cost of petrol and taxi fares, adding to the financial burden borne by disabled people. That has the potential to prevent them from travelling or, worse, to keep them trapped in their homes. Someone living with multiple conditions said:

“The LTN has added to my journey times and costs and also my fatigue levels are increased due to the extra stress and travelling, added to this I suffer with anxiety as MS means I sometimes need access to a toilet quickly, with my journey time now increased threefold it makes it very difficult.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Harris. I thank the hon. Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) for introducing this debate on behalf of the Petitions Committee, and every one of those members of the public who chose to add their names to the petitions and take part in this debate.

I represent a constituency that has thankfully not had low-traffic neighbourhoods inflicted on it, and I am here to argue that we do not want them. We have seen how they operate next door in Enfield, and we do not want that kind of traffic mayhem transported into our borough. I want my constituents to be able to get where they want to go without too much unnecessary hassle.

A successful economy depends on movement and mobility, and schemes that deliberately cause traffic delays by restricting access to our road network cause economic damage. Ultimately, such schemes make the economy grow less vigorously than it would otherwise have done, and make everyone worse off than they would otherwise have been.

As we heard from the hon. Member for Battersea, this is not just an issue that impacts people who drive cars; it affects people in buses, taxis and vans, all of which are hit by the congestion caused by LTNs. We all know that local businesses suffer when their customers and suppliers find it harder to get to them, which is another consequence of the schemes. However, people’s simple freedom to live their lives in the way they want is also restricted by this kind of anti-car measure, which inflicts unnecessary delay and headaches on them.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

The right hon. Lady makes a powerful point that people should live their lives as freely as possible, without too many interventions, and should therefore be free to use their car. Does she not recognise that other road users, such as people who walk or cycle or young people who try to walk to school, but who feel that cars are endangering them or making them less free to use the road, are on the other side of the argument?

[Theresa Villiers]

Of course, I am a strong supporter of measures that have a positive impact on cycling safety, and we must ensure that the rules of the road strike the proper balance to protect vulnerable road users. However, I do not believe that LTNs are the way to deliver that.

[Ruth Cadbury]

Like me, the right hon. Lady represents an outer London suburban borough. In her constituency, are there really no residential roads that are a continuous traffic jam as rat-runners queue to get to the main road by missing the main junctions? Before LTNs were implemented, the residents of those roads, such as Wellesley Road in Chiswick or the Teesdales in Isleworth, did not have the freedom to go home or leave home in their own cars because of the continuous traffic jams outside their homes.

[Theresa Villiers]

Of course, I accept that rat-running takes place, but again, I do not believe that LTNs are the right way to deal with that; there are much better alternative ways to manage traffic that should be considered first. I am especially concerned that older people, who perhaps do not find it as easy to get around as they used to, are particularly disadvantaged by LTN schemes, as that generation might be dependent on their cars or on taxi transport. It would certainly help if blue badge holders were exempted from the schemes, but that does not cover the millions of people with very real mobility impairments that are not serious enough to qualify for those badges.

On the rationale for the schemes, we are told that it is to get us out of our cars and make us walk and cycle, but what about the parents of young families who cannot simply load their young family on to a bicycle, as blithely advocated by the Mayor of London and Transport for London?

We also live in an era of increased awareness and concern regarding crimes against women, so we must also listen to the women who feel real fear and insecurity because an LTN means they can no longer be dropped off right outside their home by a taxi when they come home at night. They might find it more difficult to get taxi transport because they live in an LTN. The equalities impact of LTNs and a range of anti-car measures were not properly taken into account before the schemes were introduced.

As I have said before, I am a strong supporter of measures to improve cycling safety, but dogmatic measures forcing cars out of more and more road space are not the right answer and the air-quality benefits of LTNs are heavily contested. The additional congestion that they cause on main roads might worsen emissions in those locations, which are often places where people on lower incomes live, including many people from minority ethnic communities. Again, the equalities impact of the schemes is severe.

Traffic does not evaporate when we close roads, much as TfL would wish it to. It just moves to a different road. An area can be told to put up with increased emissions because a more affluent nearby street has demanded an LTN. Such projects can be extremely socially divisive, as has been clearly illustrated by the debate in places like Tower Hamlets.

Roads policy from the Mayor of London and London Labour boroughs has too often seemed to reflect the views of a limited number of vocal pressure groups, rather than the broader consensus of opinion and rather than embracing the views of women, minority ethnic communities, the elderly and the disabled. Consultation has far too often been inadequate, not least because it tends to focus only on the people who live in the street to be included in the LTN and ignores those who travel through those streets or the roads on to which traffic is displaced.

[Wera Hobhouse]

The right hon. Lady is being generous in accepting interventions, and I thank her for that. I used to be a councillor—not in my constituency but in another local authority—and the problem was always one of consultation, which I fully agree with. More people should be consulted on planning applications, but the argument is always about what is mandatory and what a councillor must do to consult, which is quite narrow. We know that councils are all cash-strapped and do not have the ability to consult more widely. Does she agree that we need a mandate to consult more widely, as well as the funds for that?

[Theresa Villiers]

If councils are not able to consult adequately, they should not introduce the schemes in the first place. Over the past 24 hours I have received emails from many people, particularly in London but beyond as well, which seem to me to be cries for help from people who are frustrated that their lives have been turned upside down by the schemes.

LTNs are an experiment that have failed. They harm our economy and our capital city, and they punish people just for trying to get around in a bus, a car or a taxi. It is time to halt the introduction of new LTNs and time for the Government and the Minister to intervene to start removing existing LTNs. The madness must stop.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Guy Opperman]

I slightly regret giving way to the hon. Lady, who raises an individual letter about her individual city. The review is addressing something that has existed for many years, and the Government think they have come up with a balanced and measured approach. I would also make the point that other aspects of the implementation have to be done, as in her area, by the local authority. It is for her local authority to take the local community with it. If it is not taking the local community with it, it is incumbent on the local authority to look at how it is implementing these things and at whether it can continue to sustain that. With respect, multiple local authorities have failed to do that and have then had to abandon schemes, which sadly reflects badly on those local authorities.

[Theresa Villiers]

Will the Minister be clear with the House that no more central Government funding will go to these schemes? Government statements have indicated that there are circumstances in which access to the DVLA database might be restricted; how bad does a scheme have to be before the Government will consider taking that step?

[Guy Opperman]

I probably should not be taking so many interventions. I am trying to respond to the debate without prejudicing the final version of what is an interim review.

My right hon. Friend is a very experienced Cabinet Minister of old—that is not a very fair way of describing her previous experience—and she will understand that I have an obligation not to prejudice the final version of the review. I merely direct her to paragraph 3 of the foreword, which I did not read out—I was not going to read the whole thing out—but says that

“a consultation will also be launched on targeting the use of DVLA data by councils to enforce substandard LTNs and other anti-motorist traffic schemes.”

If my right hon. Friend looks at the actual review, there are passages contained therein on funding. However, much as I said, the preference is to have worked with local authorities; it is only in extreme circumstances that the issue of funding that my right hon. Friend describes would come into play. I suggest she takes the individual document and awaits the final Government version, which will be there and responded to.

Greater London Low Emission Zone Charging (Amendment) Bill

Theresa Villiers Excerpts

Friday 22nd March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Gareth Johnson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for intervening. As the law stands at the moment, the Government do not have the power to overturn the ULEZ expansion. As a consequence, I have introduced this Bill, which would give the Government the power to overturn the expansion.

I am really grateful to the Minister for his work and efforts on this issue, and for the fact that the Government now support the Bill. I therefore hope that it will be successful. We have heard about the scrappage scheme, but if we actually look into it, we see that it is up to £2,000 per vehicle—good luck getting a vehicle that is ULEZ compliant for up to £2,000. We are also hearing that people are finding it very difficult to actually get their £2,000, or up to £2,000, from Transport for London; there have been a lot of delays. People have said, “Why don’t we expand the scrappage scheme right down to Dartford and beyond?” Well, where do we draw the line if we are going to increase the scrappage area? Should it go up to the midlands or down to the west country? It could cost the taxpayers of this country billions of pounds, simply because the Mayor of London is unable to organise his finances.

[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

I strongly support my hon. Friend’s Bill, because this is an unjust charge. Does he agree that some of the victims of the charge are local high street businesses in outer London, whose customers from beyond the London border are reluctant to come in because they may have to pay the charge?

[Gareth Johnson]

I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend, who has been a real champion of this issue for her constituents in Barnet. She is absolutely right: people outside of London like to travel into London to use the dry cleaners, fish and chip shops, sweet shops and so on, but that no longer happens if their vehicle is not ULEZ compliant.

Oral Answers to Questions

Theresa Villiers Excerpts

Thursday 8th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Guy Opperman]

With respect, the number of bus journeys in England increased by half a billion to 3.4 billion in the financial year ending March 2023, and that happened because of massive Government funding, which has effectively doubled since 2009. The hon. Gentleman is actually lauding something that is funded by this Government. It is unquestionably the case that we have allowed certain local authorities and Mayors to engage in franchising—something we introduced—but there has to be a way of paying for it, and it has been demonstrated repeatedly that when Labour organisations are challenged on this, they struggle to find out how they are going to deal with the funding, because, quite simply, they do not have a plan.

[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

5. What discussions he has had with local authorities on 20 mph speed limits on roads.

[The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Mark Harper)]

In England, this is primarily a matter for local authorities. The 20 mph limits work in the right places, such as outside schools, and following the right consultation with the public. They do not work as blanket measures. We do not want them to be set indiscriminately on all roads, without due regard for the safety case and without local support.

[Theresa Villiers]

The 20 mph limits can work in quiet, narrow residential side streets where there is local consent, but London’s Labour Mayor and boroughs are increasingly inflicting them on wide roads and main roads where they are not justified. Now Barnet Council wants to introduce a big 20 mph zone in Whetstone without adequate consultation. Will the Secretary of State intervene to ensure that these speed limits are introduced only in appropriate circumstances, and only when they have strong local support?

[Mr Harper]

I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend. Imposing blanket 20 mph zones without local support—which is what Labour has done across Wales and in London—is bad for drivers, but it also risks reducing the specific protection for vulnerable road users which operates, for example, near schools. As our policy paper “Plan for drivers” explains, we will be providing stronger guidance to ensure that blanket 20 mph zones are restricted, and we will consider further action against councils that do not comply with it.

Road User Charging Schemes

Theresa Villiers Excerpts

Monday 26th June 2023 Westminster Hall

[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer.

I start by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) for his very able introduction of this very important subject. I also thank everyone who has taken the trouble to sign the petitions that we are reflecting on today.

I will focus on the proposed extension of the ultra low emission zone to cover all London boroughs, including the whole of my Chipping Barnet constituency. I do not believe that this extension is either justified or acceptable. Although I can see that there is potentially a place for charging regimes in appropriate circumstances, ULEZ expansion is the wrong scheme at the wrong time.

Of course everyone in Westminster Hall today will agree that we need to reduce air pollution, and a range of Government policies are delivering progress towards that important goal. The Mayor of London published an independent impact assessment of his ULEZ expansion proposal that concluded that it would have only a negligible impact on air quality. I emphasise that—only a negligible impact. Yet I am sure that many of us have had constituents attending our surgeries to explain the financial hardship that they will experience as a result of this charge being introduced at a time of major increases in the cost of living.

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

As an Essex MP, I wish to place firmly on the record my opposition to Mayor Khan’s ULEZ scheme, but another thing that affects air quality is when people have to queue for ages to get through roadworks. One thing that I support is what is known as lane rental, which is the concept whereby utility companies have to pay per day for the privilege of digging up the road and creating inconvenience for everyone else. The Minister and I have discussed this issue before. Essex County Council now supports this idea, by the way. Does my right hon. Friend agree that a sensible measure to improve air quality would be not to bring in ULEZ but to crack down on roadworks?

[Theresa Villiers]

I think that cracking down on roadworks is a good idea, although I have to say that we have heard many times that lane rental is to be introduced, and somehow we all still seem to get caught in those traffic jams. My right hon. Friend makes some valid points.

[Sir David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)]

I am listening with great interest to my right hon. Friend, who is making a powerful case. Of course, the reason for this ULEZ is tax raising, not air pollution control, for which it has been proved conclusively not to work. In places such as Bexley, where we have good air quality, it is just to get money into the Mayor of London’s coffers.

[Theresa Villiers]

Many of my constituents agree with my right hon. Friend. It feels as if the suburbs are up in arms. They absolutely distrust the motivation behind the scheme. Other people who are concerned about ULEZ might be those with older vehicles, which they might have maintained carefully over many years, perhaps when Gordon Brown was telling us that we all ought to go to diesel to reduce emissions.

[Gill Furniss]

Does the right hon. Member recognise this quote?

“Poor air quality is the greatest environmental threat to public health. Every year, thousands of people have their health damaged or their lives shortened by air pollution. This problem is especially serious in London, with many of the country’s worst pollution hotspots here in our capital city…and we need a concerted national effort to tackle this problem from Government, from councils, from mayors, from business, from individuals.”—[Official Report, 3 February 2021; Vol. 688, c. 971.]

Those were her words in 2021.

[Theresa Villiers]

And if I thought that this ULEZ project would improve air quality, I might be saying a different thing this afternoon, but the Mayor’s own impact assessment said that it will have a “negligible impact” on air pollution.

Think also about the sole traders or people running small businesses who are dependent on a van they cannot easily afford to replace, even if they fall into the limited category of those who qualify for the scrappage scheme. Those people all face a charge of £12.50, or having to scale back radically their mobility and their freedom to see their friends and family or, in extreme cases, shutting down a business altogether.

The Mayor made no mention of ULEZ expansion in his manifesto; a majority who responded to the consultation opposed his plan; and he is giving people only a few months to get ready for its imposition. Other charging schemes were announced years in advance, giving reasonable time for everyone to adjust.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

The right hon. Lady talks about the timing of the roll-out. My Liberal Democrat colleagues and I absolutely agree that, in the midst of a cost of living crisis, to roll out the expansion of ULEZ recklessly, at breakneck speed, is absolutely the wrong timing. Will she and other colleagues in this Chamber sign my early-day motion 1364? It was tabled today and calls for a delay to the roll-out, a doubling of the scrappage schemes—something that Conservatives in the London Assembly supported the Liberal Democrats on—and the Government to fund a scrappage scheme for those areas outside London where many of our key workers, who will be hit so hard, come in from.

[Theresa Villiers]

Everyone loves a convert, but I wish we had not seen Liberal Democrats in local government all across London welcoming the Mayor’s scheme, which is what they appeared to do.

[Munira Wilson]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Theresa Villiers]

No, the hon. Lady will get her turn in a moment.

[Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Theresa Villiers]

I am going to make some progress.

Constituents stop me in the street to tell me how much they oppose Mayor Khan’s proposal. A protest I organised, which I was expecting to attract about 10 people and be rather low key, attracted a crowd of about 60. Outer London high streets in places such as Barnet are already suffering from the big switch to online retail, accelerated by the pandemic; losing their customers from outside London could be a killer blow.

Our public services in outer London depend heavily on workers who do not live in the capital. Schools, the NHS and the police already struggle to recruit the people they need. Setting up a ULEZ pay wall around London will make that task even harder and place even greater pressure on NHS waiting times.

Many people living in areas around London will find that they cannot avoid driving into the capital to work, to care for relatives or for hospital appointments. They will have to pay, despite never having a vote in an election for the Mayor of London. That is a shocking example of taxation without representation, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) pointed out in this Chamber only a few weeks ago.

The issue is made worse by Transport for London’s unhelpful and negative approach to cross-border bus services, such as the 84 service in my constituency. The operator discontinued the route between Potters Bar and Barnet last year after concluding that it was not commercially viable. However, despite many appeals from me and others, TfL and the Mayor have not lifted a finger to get it reinstated. The Mayor promises that the ULEZ expansion will fund transport improvements, but there is no sign of them so far. The one orbital bus route that has been announced will be a wholly inadequate substitute for the millions of journeys that will be hit by the new charging scheme.

The ULEZ proposal comes on top of a host of anti-car measures. Too often, schemes such as low traffic neighbourhoods and segregated cycle lanes have worsened congestion, transferring traffic from leafier, more prosperous areas to main roads that are home to more disadvantaged communities, which may be hotspots for air pollution. When it comes to the radical schemes seen in London over recent years aimed at promoting cycling, we need to balance the interests of the small minority who cycle with those of the majority who do not, including the elderly and people with mobility impairments for whom getting on a bike is just not a viable option.

It is not acceptable that taxies are being caught up in Mayor Khan’s war on the motorist. Nearly half the licensed taxi fleet is now zero-emission capable, and within a decade, all licensed taxis are expected to be electric. Licensed taxis are a crucial part of our public transport system, and the only form of fully accessible door-to-door transport in our city. There is no justification for excluding them from Bank, Bishopsgate or Tottenham Court Road, as is currently the case. That goes against years of cross-party consensus that meant that taxis could go wherever buses could.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend; she is, as ever, making a powerful contribution. I want to push her on that point. The number of taxi drivers has now halved. Road blockages, lengthy queues and difficulties in getting around London have made their lives a living hell, and more and more of them are leaving the profession. One of the great shining examples of London transport is being killed off by the present Mayor.

[Theresa Villiers]

Many of my constituents who drive taxis will share my right hon. Friend’s concerns. It would be a real tragedy if London lost its licensed taxi fleet, but it feels that Mayor Khan is turning the city into a hostile environment for car drivers, taxi drivers and people who depend on vans and lorries.

In conclusion, the expansion of the ultra low emission zone to outer London has no mandate. It will do virtually nothing for air quality, it will be economically damaging and it will hit the poorest harder than anyone else. The Mayor should dismantle Labour’s hated ULEZ expansion. If he does not, I sincerely hope that Londoners will take the opportunity to vote him out next May and replace him with a Conservative Mayor of London.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

I confess that I had not originally planned to speak in this debate, but as not a single Labour or Lib Dem Back Bencher has put in to speak, I will make a few points in lieu of them.

The ULEZ zone affects outer London, stretching out towards the county of Essex, in some cases well past the M25. Many of my constituents and people who live in Essex will be affected by the imposition of the charge, and, because they do not live in Greater London, they cannot vote Mayor Khan out of office or vote anyone else into office. For them it really is a case of taxation without representation, which is one reason I feel strongly about it, and even more so after having heard excellent speeches on the topic by my Conservative colleagues this afternoon.

The Mayor says the issue is about air quality, but it is not. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) made perfectly clear, the studies and detailed scientific analysis show that the effect of the ULEZ on air quality will be marginal at best. Everybody knows the truth. It is not about air quality. That is the fig leaf that Mayor Khan is using to justify it. It is about money, because TfL is effectively bankrupt and has been for some years. He is therefore trying to use the charge to fill a black hole. It is perfectly obvious what he is up to, and I think every Londoner in their heart of hearts knows that.

The charge will add to the other problems that the Mayor has introduced such as the road closures and road narrowing measures in London, which serve to create more pollution on an increasingly congested number of remaining roads, because the traffic has to go somewhere. Such measures make London one of the worst cities in which to drive.

As has already been made plain, not everyone can take public transport. If people need tools or equipment for work, they have no choice other than to drive. People in the public sector will be affected, including Met police officers and NHS workers who have to drive into London to work in hospitals. I declare an interest: my wife will be one of those affected. It will also affect people in the private sector such as tradespeople going about their work trying to get to and from their place of business. All of those people will have their lives made more difficult by Mayor Khan. Let us be honest: he does not like cars and he does not seem to like car drivers, either.

A black cabbie said to me a few weeks ago, “I’ve been doing this job for over 30 years and I have never known the traffic in London to be as bad as it is now. Between all the road closures and the roadworks it is virtually impossible to get anywhere and it is about time someone raised it in Parliament.” Well, Bill—I think that was his name—now they have. Bill the cabbie was absolutely right. It is becoming incredibly difficult to drive across our capital city because there are so few arteries that we can take. If there is an accident or heavy roadworks on one of the arteries, that whole part of London an rapidly grind to a halt.

[Theresa Villiers]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Francois]

In return for earlier, I am glad to.

[Theresa Villiers]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that in an age when we are trying to become a more productive economy, it is madness to make it more difficult to get around our capital city, which generates so much of our GDP? That is crazy.

[Mr Francois]

Yes. Perhaps it is a function of my age, but I can remember a time when the fastest way to get across London was to hop in a cab. It is certainly not that way now. We have about half the number of black cab drivers that we had prior to the pandemic, which is a fantastic drop-off, bearing in mind that it takes an average of three or four years to do the knowledge and get a green badge. Many of them have given up. From talking to them or to friends of people who have given up, we find that many have done so partly because of their age—that was an effect of the pandemic—but that many others have given up because it is so difficult to get across London. It is just too stressful a way to earn a living. That is why sometimes people can wait quite a long while to get a black cab in London. There are far fewer around than there were. If anybody knows about the challenges of driving across London, I would suggest that black cab drivers are well-placed to comment.

One of the other great problems is roadworks, which have a great effect on air quality. One of the most frustrating things about modern life, is it not, is spending ages in a car crawling ever so slowly forward toward the lights to get through that contraflow, only to finally make it through the lights and drive past a perfectly coned-off big hole in the ground with absolutely no one in sight doing any work on it at all? How many people get wound up by that?

We have had a proliferation of roadworks in my county of Essex. We are the roadworks capital of the UK. In a recently recorded 12-month period, we had 77,000 roadworks of one kind or another. I cannot blame that on Mayor Khan. I could talk about the utility companies or Essex County Council’s highways, but there is just too much to say. I have launched a “Can the Cones” campaign, which the Minister kindly agreed to meet me about in March. One thing he was looking at was lane rental—not ULEZ—which involves making contractors pay by the day to dig up roads. In the parts of the country where that has been brought in, contractors, funnily enough, tend to get the job done much quicker. Perhaps in the Minister’s reply he could spare a moment to say where he has got to on that.

Essex County Council, I am pleased to say, has come around to the idea and is working on a joint scheme with Suffolk to introduce it. The reason why it is so important is that as communities have grown historically, we have tended to find that most of the utilities have been laid on a very limited number of roads, and those are the ones that get dug up again and again. They would be ideal candidates for which to bring in some form of lane rental.

I thank the House for its forbearance, and I would summarise the issue as follows: ULEZ is going to be, if it is introduced—I hope the Mayor might yet relent—a tax on ordinary, hard-working men and people of this country, who will be penalised £12.50 a day for having the temerity to want to go to work to earn money and put food on their family’s plates. That is what Mayor Khan is doing. The whole bit about air quality is complete camouflage. It is not about that; it is about the money. For that reason, the petitioners are right: rather than the cars, it is ULEZ that should be scrapped.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gill Furniss]

I did not say that; I said that I will come to that later in my speech.

The Minister may not want to admit it, but a clear policy direction has been set by the Government, and local authorities are merely meeting their obligations at the behest of Government. Although Government Members like to kick up a fuss about clean air zones, their Government have approved those clean air zones where air pollution reductions have been legally required. Having essentially required councils to implement clean air zones, Ministers have failed to follow through with the support to help councils to meet their air quality targets.

To take just one example, let us look at the Government’s record on the transition to electric vehicles. Electric vehicles do not produce any nitrogen oxide pollution and they produce significantly less PM_2.5 pollution. Encouraging people to switch from petrol and diesel cars to EVs is therefore a vital step in improving air quality, but under the Conservatives, we are at risk of stalling the switch.

[Mrs Sheryll Murray in the Chair]

Ministers have slashed help to purchase electric vehicles, and we are set to miss the target for 300,000 EV charging points by almost two decades. That is why our world-class car manufacturers are losing confidence in investing in Britain.

Air pollution causes huge harm to human health, which is why Labour has made ambitious pledges to reduce it, and we plan to get there by helping the switch to cleaner transport. That is why we have a transition plan to enable people to switch affordably to low-emission vehicles. Labour’s plan would make Britain a world leader in electric vehicles; our national wealth fund would invest in eight battery plants nationwide and win the global race for the future of the industry. With action to expand charging infrastructure, Labour’s plan for green growth will drive jobs, tackle the cost of living crisis and help to clean up toxic air.

[Theresa Villiers]

Can the hon. Lady confirm whether the Labour candidate in the Uxbridge and South Ruislip by-election supports ULEZ expansion?

[Gill Furniss]

I thank the right hon. Lady for that question. She would perhaps would want to ask the candidate that; I am not here to put words in his mouth.

Draft Road Vehicles (Authorised Weight) (Amendment) Regulations 2023

Theresa Villiers Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd May 2023 General Committees

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Richard Holden)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Road Vehicles (Authorised Weight) (Amendment) Regulations 2023.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. The draft regulations will be made under the powers conferred by sections 41(1), (2)(d), (3) and (5) of the Road Traffic Act 1988. They implement increases in weight limits by up to a maximum of 1 tonne for certain alternatively fuelled heavy goods vehicles and by a flat 2 tonnes for certain zero-emission vehicles. In all cases, the maximum weight limits for individual axles will remain unchanged.

No additional weight allowance for zero-emission or alternatively fuelled vehicles will apply to the heaviest articulated lorry and road train combinations, of 44 tonnes, or to four-axle motor vehicles of 32 tonnes. The extra weight allowances do apply to articulated lorries and roadtrain combinations with five or six axles, normally limited to 40 tonnes. They also apply to four-axle combinations, normally limited to 36 or 38 tonnes, and to certain smaller zero-emission lorries with two or three axles. In addition, they apply to zero-emission three-axle articulated buses. Two or three-axle alternatively fuelled versions of these types can already operate at up to 1 tonne above the normal limits.

Implementing these changes will provide domestic operators with the flexibility already available to those from the EU operating in Great Britain. Within the EU-UK trade and co-operation agreement, under appendix 31-C-1-1, the maximum authorised weights for certain vehicles carrying out movements under the agreement have been increased.

[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

I very much welcome the instrument the Minister is bringing forward. It will help to deliver the Government’s net zero strategy by encouraging the adoption of ultra low and zero-emission vehicles. Does he agree that encouraging the switch to lower-carbon and zero-carbon driving is a better way to address climate and pollution matters than trying to drive vehicles off the road through things such as the ultra low emission zone in London?

[Mr Holden]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention, and I wholeheartedly agree. The best option is providing alternatives through public transport and also, wherever possible, assistance to those wanting to switch, as we are doing today with the HGV sector. That will also include hydrogen, which will be important for some of the longer-distance lorries, as well as for electric vehicles. My right hon. Friend makes an excellent point.

The agreement applies to vehicles used on international journeys and to EU vehicles operating in the UK on cabotage. The allowances are to accommodate the additional weight of alternative fuel technology up to a maximum of 1 tonne and, for a zero-emission technology, 2 extra tonnes.

To put the regulations in context, transport is the biggest greenhouse gas-emitting sector of our economy, and road freight is a significant contributor to that. In 2021, HGVs produced around 20% of greenhouse gas emissions from our domestic transport network. Utilising zero-emission and alternatively fuelled freight vehicles can contribute positively to freight decarbonisation and help with achieving the UK’s commitment to reach net zero by 2050.

A vehicle’s powertrain consists of the components that generate power and then transmit it to the road to move the vehicle. Currently, alternatively fuelled and zero-emission heavy goods vehicles may have a heavier powertrain technology than traditionally fuelled internal combustion engine heavy goods vehicles. For example, a pressurised fuel tank in an alternatively fuelled vehicle, or batteries in a zero-emission vehicle, can be significantly heavier than a conventional petrol or diesel fuel tank—I saw some examples recently on a visit to DHL in the midlands.

The typically heavier powertrains of these vehicles mean that, under current regulations, alternatively fuelled and zero-emission HGVs may have to carry a reduced amount of cargo than comparable fossil fuel vehicles. This places them at a competitive disadvantage. The higher weight of the empty vehicles acts as a payload penalty, which then decreases the commercial viability of zero or lower-emission vehicles.

The regulations would afford zero-emission vehicles a weight increase of 2 tonnes, as opposed to the maximum 1 tonne increase offered to alternatively fuelled vehicles, as the features that make them zero emission—particularly the batteries—are likely to be heavier, although I think we all hope that these provisions will be needed less as the technology continues to improve over time. This approach further incentivises the uptake of zero-emission vehicles, bringing potential benefits via emission reductions.

A public consultation asking whether to permit alternatively fuelled or zero-emission vehicles to have that slightly higher weight limit was carried out between 14 July and 3 September 2021 as part of a wider consultation on the phase-out dates for sales of new non-zero-emission heavy goods vehicles. Of the responses received, 59% were in favour of the increase in weight limits, with only 6% opposed and the remainder being “Don’t know”. A Government response confirming our intention to introduce these changes was published on 12 May 2022.

Let me turn to the contents of the statutory instrument. Amendments will be made to the Road Vehicles (Authorised Weight) Regulations 1998 by making provision to increase the maximum authorised weight for certain alternatively fuelled and zero-emission vehicles. Amendments will also be made to add a definition of “zero-emission vehicle”. The regulations provide for the Secretary of State to undertake a review of the regulatory provision contained in these regulations on a five-yearly basis. That is to account for the rapid deployment of technology and to ensure that increased weight limits remain suitable.

To conclude, the regulations are essential for supporting the commercial viability of zero-emission and alternatively fuelled commercial heavy goods vehicles. They do not involve any regulatory burden on domestic road freight operators. Instead, they aim to give flexibility to those using zero-emission or alternatively fuelled HGVs. The de minimis assessment identifies a best-estimate monetised net present value over the years of £18.2 million, which relates to the greater business efficiency as a result of these measures. There are also unmonetised costs, such as infrastructure costs, and unmonetised benefits, such as a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. The regulations will also ensure parity of regulation, meaning that domestic operators will not be placed at a disadvantage to their European counterparts. I hope Members will join me in supporting the regulations, and I commend them to the Committee.

Oral Answers to Questions

Theresa Villiers Excerpts

Thursday 13th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Anna Firth (Southend West) (Con)]

6. What steps her Department is taking to help maintain the provision of bus services in all parts of the UK.

[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

8. What steps her Department is taking to help maintain the provision of bus services in all parts of the UK

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lucy Frazer)]

The Government have provided nearly £2 billion of support since March 2020 through emergency and recovery grants to ensure that our bus sector survived throughout the pandemic. That is on top of the £1 billion of transformation funding that will make our bus services faster, more reliable and cheaper across much of England.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

We’ll miss the bus at this rate.

[Theresa Villiers]

Will the Minister acknowledge that there are sometimes problems with important transport links that run between destinations in different transport authority areas? Will she seek to address that, and will she talk to Hertfordshire County Council and Transport for London about restoring the 84 bus route between Chipping Barnet, Hadley and Potters Bar?

[Lucy Frazer]

My right hon. Friend has made an important point, because, of course, transport crosses corridors. As she will know, transport in London is devolved to the Mayor of London, and the Government have agreed with Transport for London a £1.2 billion multi-year settlement to secure the long-term future of London’s transport network, including bus services. Where bus-tender routes operate across transport authority boundaries, we expect the local transport authorities involved to work closely with bus operators.

Oral Answers to Questions

Theresa Villiers Excerpts

Thursday 16th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: the right to protest is absolutely central to the way that we go about our democracy, but that does not provide people with the right to stop people getting to urgent hospital appointments, getting their kids to school and going about their lawful business. That is where we draw the line. It is why these injunctions have been used and, as has been discussed, we intend to put this into proper law as a criminal offence, rather than having to use the civil route.

[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

9. What discussions he has had with transport authorities on the role of park-and-ride schemes in encouraging people to use public transport.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Robert Courts)]

Government guidance to local authorities on developing bus improvement plans includes advice on park-and-ride services, as set out in the national bus strategy.

[Theresa Villiers]

In London, suburban tube station car parks are important park-and-ride facilities, encouraging people to get on the public transport network, so will the Government exercise their powers under section 163 of the Greater London Authority Act 1999 to prevent the Mayor from shutting down these facilities in Cockfosters and High Barnet and to ensure that these station car parks remain available for people to use?

[Robert Courts]

The Secretary of State has indeed received a number of applications submitted by Transport for London under section 163 of the Greater London Authority Act 1999 to dispose of operational land at London underground stations. These are considered carefully on a case-by-case basis, but my right hon. Friend’s views have been heard very clearly.

Motor Insurance: Court Judgments

Theresa Villiers Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd September 2021 Westminster Hall

[Hannah Bardell (in the Chair)]

Before we begin, I encourage Members to wear masks when they are not speaking. This is in line with current Government and House of Commons Commission guidance. Please give each other and members of staff space when seated and when entering and leaving the room. As a result of votes earlier, the debate will go on until 5.45 pm, notwithstanding any votes that we may have during this debate.

[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the effect of recent court judgments on the cost of motor insurance.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Ms Bardell. I would also like to warmly welcome the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Trudy Harrison), to her role. I am sure that she is going to be a great success.

Today, I want to make the case for the removal of the EU rules contained in the European Court of Justice judgment in the case of Damijan Vnuk v. Zava rovalnica Triglav d.d. I would like to thank my constituent Robert Rams and the Motor Insurers’ Bureau for alerting me to this problem and providing some very helpful briefing information.

Mr Vnuk was the victim of an accident involving a reversing tractor inside a barn in a farmyard in Slovenia. He took his compensation claim to the European Court of Justice. In the United Kingdom, an incident of this nature would be covered by our compulsory employer’s liability insurance regime, but not all EU member states have such a scheme to protect employees in the workplace. In its 2014 judgment, the ECJ therefore shoehorned Mr Vnuk’s compensation claim into the EU’s motor insurance law. In doing so, it extended the scope of compulsory motor insurance to accidents on private land involving a very broad range of vehicles—essentially, anything with wheels and a motor that does not run on rails, no matter where it is used or for what purpose. This is manifestly different from the compulsory motor insurance requirement in the Road Traffic Act 1988, which applies to vehicles that are permitted to be used on our streets and roads.

The UK’s approach to compulsory motor insurance has been consistent since the 1930s. It is proportionate and it works. However, Vnuk had direct effect in EU law, and that means that it forms part of the retained EU law imported on to our domestic statute book via the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. As a result of cases in the UK courts, such as Lewis v. Tindale, the UK’s compensation fund for people injured by uninsured drivers is now obliged to pay out in the circumstances covered by the Vnuk judgment.

The UK compensation fund is run by the Motor Insurers’ Bureau, and every driver who takes to our roads funds the scheme through their motor insurance premiums. The combined effect of the Vnuk and Lewis cases and the 2018 Act is that the scheme is now having to bear very significant costs for which it was never designed, and motorists are left picking up the bill. Let us be clear about what we are talking about here: accidents on private land, in private gardens, in farmer’s fields, on golf courses, inside supermarkets, in banks or in offices—the list is long. These are places where what has happened, or even the fact that anything occurred at all, will often be difficult to establish with any clarity, and that gives rise to worrying opportunities for fraud. The extension of compulsory insurance to motor sport is a further side effect of the case.

[Sir Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is making an excellent case, and unfortunately this Chamber cannot legislate. However, is she aware that salvation is perhaps on its way from our hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone)? He has a Bill before the House, the Motor Vehicle (Compulsory Insurance) Bill, the Second Reading of which is on 22 October, which should deal with the very point that she is making.

[Theresa Villiers]

I am aware of the Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone). I will come to it in a moment and I hope it has the potential to solve the problem. The trouble is, can we get it through Parliament?

The extension to motorsports is problematic for many reasons. For many people who enjoy participating in motorsports the costs of the new requirement—even assuming they can get the compulsory cover, which must be doubtful in some cases—will be very high. I understand that motorsports organisations and many participants in those sports have raised serious concerns about the judgment and asked for it to be removed from UK law. Although of course we can have a legitimate debate on the potential extension of compulsory insurance and compensation schemes to new scenarios, there can be no justification for leaving drivers to shoulder the whole cost by artificially forcing these new liabilities into our existing motor insurance scheme.

The sums at stake are very large. The Government Actuary’s Department has estimated that total annual costs could rise to more than £2 billion, which would mean roughly an extra £50 on the insurance premium of every motorist in the United Kingdom. That will hit hardworking people who may be struggling to make ends meet.

Of course, £50 is an average, so a disproportionate increase in premiums is likely to fall on groups such as young drivers, who already pay more because they constitute a higher risk during their first years on the road. Businesses with fleets of vehicles will be hit hard at a time when they may be struggling already to recover from the effects of lockdown, and motorists in parts of the north of England, where in some cases premiums are higher, could also end up paying more, which would work against the Government’s laudable levelling-up aspirations.

[Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for securing this important debate; I share her aim that legislation be introduced to reverse this situation. She will be aware that legislation was passed in Parliament to reduce insurance premiums by around £50 on average, I believe, from whiplash compensation. Would it not be most unfortunate if that £50 saving, which everyone warmly embraces, was loaded back on as a result of this judgment?

--- Later in debate ---

[Theresa Villiers]

It would indeed be most unfortunate, and I am grateful to all the hon. Members who are here to make such points on the need to resolve this issue because of the potential pressure on household budgets.

In a column in The Daily Telegraph, the Prime Minister —in the years before he became Prime Minister, of course—described Vnuk as the “perfect example” of the over-regulation that had

“sapped the competitiveness of the EU and burdened it with low growth and high unemployment.”

He continued:

“There is no need, no call, no demand, no appetite, no reason, no justification, not even the shred of the beginnings of a case—in the United Kingdom—for this kind of pointless and expensive burden on millions of people.”

Against that background. it would have been reasonable to expect the Government to remove the effects of Vnuk from UK law once the transition period ended. There is nothing to prevent them. Under the terms of the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020, a simple piece of primary legislation is needed to make the change. In a February press release, the Transport Secretary said that his Department intended to do just that, adding that he was delighted to announce that we no longer needed to implement Vnuk.

Sadly, since then, not a great deal appears to have happened. Nothing on this was mentioned in the Queen’s Speech in May. In late June, the Transport Secretary did issue a written ministerial statement, which is welcome. In it, he said that delivering the commitment announced in February was a priority and that the Government would follow the passage of the private Member’s Bill tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough “with interest”.

As we have heard, my hon. Friend’s Motor Vehicles (Compulsory Insurance) Bill would deliver the legislative change we need. I very much welcome the Bill and urge Hon Members to support it when it returns to the House on 22 October. I gather that the Department for Transport has advised on the drafting of the Bill, so hopefully, as the Prime Minister might say, it is oven ready.

I hope this debate will give the Bill some momentum and reassure hon. Members who follow Friday business with care that the issues it seeks to address have received proper scrutiny in this House. However, as everyone here today will understand, a presentation Bill of this nature almost never gets the parliamentary time it needs to reach the statute book. It takes an extraordinary amount of good fortune and a very fair wind for such a Bill to make any progress at all. In the Sessions from 2010 to 2019, 470 presentation Bills were tabled and only six became the law of the land. I am afraid a Government Bill is needed, along with adequate parliamentary time set aside for it to be debated and passed, perhaps as part of a wider regulatory reform Bill going through Parliament. As yet, there is no sign of that happening.

Meanwhile, even as this rather sorry state of affairs in Westminster persists, the irony is that Brussels has been working on a package of changes to EU law that would remove the most extreme effects of the Vnuk case. The rapporteur of the European Parliament described the case as an example of “absurd over-regulation”. The changes have been approved by the Council of Ministers and apparently passed by the European Parliament, so their entry into effect would appear to be fairly imminent. When that happens, we could face the bizarre situation where the UK is forced, by its own law, to continue to apply that absurd over-regulation because its effect was frozen into our legal system as retained EU law at the end of the transition period. In the meantime, the EU has taken action to mitigate the problem, relieving its own motorists of the unfair cost burdens the case imposes.

I do not think that that is what taking back control should look like. Now we have left the European Union and regained the power to make our own laws in this country, we need to use our new freedoms wisely to build a regulatory system that is more proportionate, more agile, more adaptable and better suited to our domestic circumstances here in the UK.

Earlier this year, I was asked by the Prime Minister to be part of his taskforce on innovation, growth and regulatory reform. The report we published contains a series of ideas for how the Government can create a modern regulatory framework that is based on core principles of domestic common law and that facilitates both innovation and competition. There are huge economic benefits to be realised if we do that, particularly in the high-growth, high-tech sectors of the future. Last week, it was encouraging to hear the Paymaster General outline the Government’s plans to do that in response to the TIGRR report, and the Minister responsible for EU relations, Lord Frost, is to be commended for the proposed regulatory reforms in the paper he circulated on the same day. However, one of the key barriers he faces is the fact that the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 means that retained EU law can, in the main, only be amended or repealed using primary legislation. The Vnuk controversy shows that we urgently need a faster track way to remove or update EU laws that no longer work for us, most of which arrived on the statute book via secondary legislation in the first place.

My message today to the Minister and to the Government is that we need to get on with tackling the Vnuk problem. I urge them to take action now to put things right and remove the case from UK law. That will mean bringing forward their own Bill in Government time so that we can make repealing Vnuk a demonstrable benefit of leaving the European Union and regaining the historic right to make our own laws in our own Parliament once again.

[Hannah Bardell (in the Chair)]

I will seek to call Opposition spokespeople by 5.23 pm and the SNP and Labour spokespeople will have five minutes each.

--- Later in debate ---

[Theresa Villiers]

I am grateful to the Minister for her thoughtful and comprehensive response. I am also grateful to everyone who has taken part in today’s debate and for the support that has been demonstrated for making this change to our law, reversing the unintended consequences of the Vnuk judgment. To respond to some of the points made by the Minister, this is a problem that is already happening. Because of the principle of direct effect, Vnuk-type claims are already coming in and in some instances are already being paid, so there is an urgency to this. It is not just a theoretical possibility: it is having an impact already, and in due course the costs could be very considerable, as the Minister said.

I also welcome the contribution made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) regarding the complexities of EU law. I reiterate that we need to look afresh at how we deal with the body of EU law, because if we have to bring forward primary legislation every time we need to change, amend or update it, that will make for a very crowded parliamentary timetable. We need to see whether we can start using secondary legislation in this context, as is being contemplated by Lord Frost. After all, the vast majority of this law arrived on our statute book as a result of secondary legislation, so I hope the Government will take away the fact that Vnuk is an example of a problem that will recur many times in future unless we make some changes to the European Union (Withdrawal) Act.

[Sir William Cash]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Theresa Villiers]

I had probably better not, because I am only supposed to be summing up. I hope that today’s debate has given some momentum to the Bill tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), which I encourage colleagues to support. Sadly, it only takes one Member of the House of Commons to object to that Bill for it to fall, but we have heard some sensible scrutiny of it today, which I hope will reassure some of those who follow these matters on Fridays with great care.

We all recognise that the pressure on the Government’s legislative programme is intense, and that that pressure has been made even more acute by the pandemic. However, I welcome the Minister’s assurance that the Government are supportive of the Bill tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough, and that if it fails, they will look to legislate as soon as they have the opportunity. I urge them to take this issue seriously and to ensure that we remove Vnuk from the statute book as soon as is practicable, so that we save people costs on their motor insurance premiums and give a bit of a helping hand to families across the country who may be finding it difficult to make ends meet and pay the bills. It is unnecessary to impose this cost on them, and it is time that we legislated to remove that cost from them.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the effect of recent court judgments on the cost of motor insurance.

Transport Decarbonisation

Theresa Villiers Excerpts

Wednesday 14th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

I am pleased to say that we have in many senses backed this, because we are of course ensuring that the consequentials from all our decisions, including decisions on the decarbonisation of transport, are made in such a way that the Government in Scotland are able to benefit from them. As I mentioned earlier, it is very good to work closely together on these things. Perhaps in that spirit, I can ask the hon. Gentleman to press the Scottish Government to ensure that they reach their statutory requirements to deliver carbon cuts over the next few years as well.

[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

Does the Secretary of State agree that to tackle climate change, we need to decarbonise—not demonise—cars, vans and taxis? With that in mind, will he talk to the Mayor of London about dismantling some of the schemes that have unjustifiably removed access to those vehicles to so many of the streets of central London?

[Grant Shapps]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right about our stance. We are not against the car. We want people to have access to cars; indeed, in rural areas they are often the only way for people to get around, although obviously we want to improve bus services and the rest of it. We intend to carry on investment to make sure that cars can run without damaging people’s health and the environment. That makes sense.

I am afraid that too often the Mayor of London gets the wrong end of the stick with all this. He seems to spend his time working out new ways to introduce boundary taxes and the like to try to charge people who are not his constituents for the cost of running his administration in London. It is not on.

Oral Answers to Questions

Theresa Villiers Excerpts

Thursday 28th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I thank my hon. Friend; I am sure that the ticker tape and dried rose petals are still being cleared. I am happy to assure him that we remain committed to improving the resilience of this vital transport artery. Network Rail is continuing to develop proposals for further phases of the resilience programme, using £17.2 million of Government funding that has already been given.

[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

What steps he is taking to expand capacity on the rail network.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Andrew Stephenson)]

The Government have made record investments in building and modernising our rail network, and providing capacity for rail users. The spending review included over £58 billion of investment for road and rail transport between 2021 and 2025, delivering some of the Government’s largest capital projects and helping us to build back better post covid-19.

[Theresa Villiers [V]]

The Government’s programme of rail improvements is the biggest since the Victorian era. Will the Minister confirm that it is going ahead, even if passenger numbers take some time to recover from the covid outbreak? Will he also ensure that it delivers significant improvements to connections between our great northern cities, because that is essential to levelling up economic opportunities in our country?

[Andrew Stephenson]

My right hon. Friend makes an important point. We are getting on with delivering record amounts of investment in our rail infrastructure, particularly across the north, with the TransPennine route upgrade. We announced £589 million for that investment, joining Manchester, Leeds and other great cities across the north of England. That will be the biggest investment in the conventional rail network. Of course, at the same time we are also making progress with major infrastructure projects such as high-speed rail; last week we concluded the parliamentary passage of the High Speed Rail (West Midlands - Crewe) Bill, taking the railway line from the west midlands through to Crewe.