Amendment of the Law

Tobias Ellwood Excerpts

Friday 23rd March 2012 Commons Chamber

[John Woodcock]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. Frankly, Britain deserves better.

The overwhelming majority of the aviation industry agrees that Heathrow would struggle to continue in its current form alongside an estuary airport, placing at least 140,000 jobs in west London and the M4 corridor under threat. I hope, then, that when the Secretary of State finally publishes her thinking, she will choose a sensible course based on providing additional capacity at existing airports, not a strategy based on a pie-in-the-sky estuary airport.

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[John Woodcock]

I will not at this stage, if the hon. Gentleman does not mind.

My hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State is still waiting for a response to her letter offering cross-party talks on tackling capacity at existing airports. Perhaps the Secretary of State could pop her reply in a “get well soon” card and send it over with a nice bunch of grapes. I am running out of suggestions to make her agree to this proposal, which seems eminently sensible to Opposition Members. The aviation industry, businesses and passengers need certainty to guarantee investment, and we are offering to help her achieve that.

On the railways, we strongly welcome a number of the investment decisions made in the Budget, particularly the Secretary of State’s support for the vital northern hub project. I pay tribute to the hard work put in by colleagues on both sides of the House from across the north of England on ensuring that support for the hub transferred from the last Government to this one. We need clarity, however. In the Budget, the Chancellor announced £130 million of support for a £500 million project, but we need details of what remains to be funded.

Although that infrastructure investment, when it arrives, will be welcome, the Secretary of State knows that with no help on Wednesday for rail passengers struggling with fares that for some have already risen by up to 11% this year, there was nothing to reassure commuters that the next two years of RPI-plus-three increases will not be going ahead, and nothing to change the franchises about to be awarded by her Department that will allow for 15 years of fares increasing by up to 8% every year. All over the country, families are finding themselves paying more for their journey to work than for their rent or their mortgage. They will not welcome this inaction on fares. These sky-high increases price people out of jobs, stunt growth and discourage sustainable travel choices.

Britain’s bus users, too, who are already being hit by reduced services and rising fares, will have noticed that they warranted no mention at all in the Budget, and there was only a passing reference in the Secretary of State’s speech today to a paper to be produced later today. From next month, bus operators are being hit by a 20% cut in the bus service operators grant. In my constituency, like those of many hon. Members, that is threatening to lead to more services being taken off the road and a hike in fares for those who remain.

Buses are the backbone of our transport network and essential to ensuring that many people—especially young people—can access jobs and training. Labour is calling on bus companies to set up a free travel scheme for 16 to 18-year-olds in return for the financial support they receive. Let us compare that to the approach by Ministers, who seem content to wash their hands of the entire sector. When they could be helping tackle youth unemployment, they risk making a bad situation even worse.

At the end of his statement on Wednesday, the Chancellor boasted that he had

“not settled for a do-nothing Budget.”—[Official Report, 21 March 2012; Vol. 542, c. 807.]

But to motorists, businesses, and the millions who rely on public transport across the country, that is exactly what he has done. On rail fares, he has done nothing; on the crisis facing our buses, nothing; on aviation capacity, nothing; and on fuel costs, well, he has done something—he has made them even higher. In defending the Budget, the Secretary of State and her Ministers need to explain whether they do not understand or simply are not bothered about the damage they are doing to family budgets and the impact it is having on Britain’s ability to get moving again.