Oral Answers to Questions

Tobias Ellwood Excerpts

Thursday 16th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Huw Merriman]

I have been meeting the operators to discuss the matter. I am happy to write to her, setting out the exact conclusion of those conversations. I am always keen to ensure that passenger and consumer interests are protected and preserved, so I will write to her.

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

I thank the Secretary of State and the Rail Minister for their support for upgrades to Pokesdown station in my constituency, not least the improvements to the lifts, but the project has run into a few technical and financial problems; will the Secretary of State or the Minister update the House on it?

[Huw Merriman]

I promised my right hon. Friend from this Dispatch Box that the project would be delivered, and I continue to give him that assurance. I am sorry that there have been those delays. This week, I spoke to the team at some length about the station. My right hon. Friend knows that I will visit him at the station, and I will have some more concrete news for him then.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tobias Ellwood Excerpts

Thursday 26th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Secretary of State, I am being generous, but such long questions and answers need to come earlier, not in topicals.

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

T4.   Some 75% of visitors to Bournemouth travel by car. They are most welcome, particularly when they do not park on double yellow lines, but some are choosing to do so for a great day by the sea. They are willing to pay the £35 charge, which obstructs local traffic and, indeed, the emergency services. If someone parks on a double yellow in London, the charge is £65. That is a real deterrent, so can the London charging rates for parking on yellow lines please be extended to Bournemouth?

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

I thank my right hon. Friend for his question. I recently met with my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West (Sir Conor Burns) and some members of the local council, and this issue is something I would be happy to discuss further with him.

Pokesdown Railway Station

Tobias Ellwood Excerpts

Wednesday 11th January 2023 Commons Chamber

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

I am sure colleagues will be delighted to stay to listen to this Adjournment debate on the upgrade of Pokesdown for Boscombe railway station—to give it its full name.

To place the area and the issue in context, Bournemouth is a relatively new town, founded just over 200 years ago and sitting between the ancient towns of Poole and Christchurch, both named in the Domesday Book. The latter part of the 19th century saw this beautiful stretch of the southern coastline become a popular place to live, work and visit, thanks largely to the new railway line, which was run in those days by the London and South Western Railway.

In those Victorian days, Boscombe certainly hogged the wicket, with grand hotels, theatres, music halls, its own football club, Boscombe—now better known as Athletic Football Club Bournemouth—and spas that rivalled that found in Bath, attracting the wealthiest in society to the coastline. They even prompted Sir Percy Florence Shelley, son of the novelist Mary Shelley, to buy an estate in this area for his mother, who is now buried in St Peter’s Church.

In the 1880s, both Boscombe and Pokesdown had their own railway stops on the London to Weymouth line, but, as Bournemouth’s population and popularity grew in size and status, it progressively took over as the focus of the conurbation. The decline in the traditional English holiday in the 1970s and ’80s was also tough on an area that had come to lean so heavily on domestic tourism.

Today, however, investments in the communities of Boscombe and Pokesdown are seeing a rejuvenation in its fortunes—pioneered thanks to the local council’s master plan, with the towns fund, to upgrade shopping centres, pedestrian areas and park space, improve modern housing, transform the seafront attractions and revitalise local transport schemes. That is helped, of course, by the success of AFC Bournemouth, our wonderful football club.

That brings me nicely to Pokesdown railway station, for the one piece of the jigsaw that has not kept up with this welcome renaissance is local transport infrastructure. In the time that I have been campaigning to upgrade the Boscombe railway station, Bournemouth’s mainline railway station, which many colleagues will have visited in the past because of conferences, has received not just a lick of paint, but an entire redesign. To be clear, I very much welcome that, but my concern is why, when there are similar plans for Pokesdown station, they are not being acted on.

Let me first describe the station. There is no way of dodging this: it is less than welcoming—indeed, it is pretty grim. The line is a cutaway, so while the station entrances are on ground level, the platforms are 20 m below, so that natural light is limited. There are no staff at the station, its ticket counters are automated and for decades the lifts have sat dormant, broken and rusting away. First impressions count, and anyone visiting Pokesdown for Boscombe station for the first time will not be impressed by the state of it.

In preparation for this debate, I have been looking through my old notes on the matter. I began lobbying to improve the station back in 2016, and in fact I have a Department of Transport letter dated 26 May 2016 from the railways Minister at the time, Claire Perry—she has been in the news recently, although not because of my railway station. Each time I have met another Transport Minister, the same story applies: plans are in progress, tenders are being lined up, work will start soon. I really hope that that is not the generic message that I will hear from the Minister today.

It is really not complicated; we are not redesigning Waterloo or building a brand-new station. The stakeholders involved here are the local council, South Western Railway, Network Rail and the Department for Transport. I have held individual meetings and collective Zoom conference calls to try to nudge this project forward. I and the local community originally wanted the lifts, which had been broken for 35 years, to be improved—that is all. We had some passionate public meetings. Families with babies and toddlers who use prams, pushchairs, buggies and strollers want step-free access to the platforms. Those in wheelchairs do not want to have to disembark at Bournemouth station and trek back in a taxi. There are many elderly residents who are mobile but may find the 44 steps a challenge.

The money is there—I have lobbied for it. Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council has pledged £2.6 million, and South Western Railway and Network Rail have committed £3.1 million, providing a total of £5.7 million. The Department for Transport has approved the plans, so the £5.7 million question is, “Why has the work not started?”

I accept that the project has grown. It became clear that funds were available not only to repair the lifts, but to repaint the station, modernise the forecourt and platform canopies, improve security and fencing, upgrade the footbridge and even introduce station wi-fi, and who would say no to that? Even AFC Bournemouth, whose ground is only a stone’s throw from the station, has offered to help to give the station some local personality by using its large football montages to brighten the platform. I had the pleasure of speaking with Jeff Mostyn, the former chairman and now ambassador of that club, who has been so supportive in the community. He is now equally baffled by why progress has not been made.

Seven years since I started lobbying a previous railways Minister, I ask this Minister, “Please, can we fix the lifts?” Almost half a million people now use Pokesdown for Boscombe railway station every year. In business, in hospitality and residential-wise, the area is now flourishing and growing. The money is in place, the council is on board, South Western Railway and Network Rail are committed, the community is fully behind this, as is our wonderful football club, so what are we waiting for?

I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say. I hope that he will use this opportunity to confirm that committed funds for the station upgrade will be honoured; that tenders, contracts and plans have now been agreed and are in place; that there is now a fixed date for work to commence, with the lift replacements taking priority; and that he himself will be willing to visit my constituency on the date that work commences to make sure that it does actually start.

It is a real honour and privilege to represent Bournemouth East. It has been so encouraging to see Boscombe and Pokesdown rekindling and advancing their own identities as vibrant communities within the Bournemouth conurbation. So let us honour the promises to upgrade the railway station. Let us fix this problem, which has been neglected for so long. Let us finally get the job done.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Ellwood]

Will the Minister give way?

[Huw Merriman]

I thought that might elicit an intervention. I will happily take it.

[Mr Ellwood]

First, may I just thank the Minister for clearly looking carefully at the details and confirming many of the things that I have requested? If I may, I would like to take this opportunity just to underline the importance of those lifts, because he has outlined a process, and it does seem that it is still taking some time to complete. I am pleased about the canopies and the footbridge, but what locals want most urgently is for the lifts to be completed. Is there anything he can do to expedite the tender process and the awarding of a contract to make sure that the work can commence as early as possible?

[Huw Merriman]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I listened in some detail to his point that this started with a request that lifts be working, then all of a sudden a lot more money was promised to the scheme. That is a positive, but within that it is taking an awfully long time to deliver, which means that the starting issue still remains. Having been put into post a few months ago, it is clear to me that there is a danger that we over-engineer projects and do not deliver the fix that the community has been seeking.

While I am pleased that the accessibility fund will have delivered 300 accessible stations by the end of next year, with improvements to more than 1,000 more stations—indeed, we have done an audit of all stations; that is 90% complete, and we will be publishing details in spring—I am absolutely dedicated to ensuring that where we have signed off projects, we get on with them. We should not overcomplicate them, but make sure they are delivered, otherwise, for the years that they are not, people have missed out on those accessibility improvements. My right hon. Friend has that assurance from me, and indeed he has the assurance that I will follow this project and ensure that the timescales we give to this House are met or that there are good reasons why they are not.

My right hon. Friend referenced many of my predecessors, and I am grateful to them for recommending that the improvements take place. I am also grateful and want to pay tribute to him for the work he has done in securing additional funding from his local council to ensure that the scope will include lifts, canopy and footbridge. I recognise the frustration, as I hope has come across, in the length of time it has taken to get the project off the ground. I have referenced some of the reasons for that—we have had delays in securing the funding and finalising the overall scope of the project. However, I am now confident the scheme is on the right track towards delivery, and I will do everything I can to ensure that that takes place.

On that basis, I look forward to the whole project being completed by the end of 2024—having started much earlier than that, it can be delivered by 2024. I recognise my right hon. Friend’s frustration, and I am sorry for and regret the delays. I hope that I will be the rail Minister that works with him to ensure the completion of the project, and I very much look forward to coming down to visit Pokesdown station to see the benefits from this project for all rail users.

Question put and agreed to.

Russia’s Grand Strategy

Tobias Ellwood Excerpts

Thursday 6th January 2022 Commons Chamber

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

I join other hon. Members in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) on securing this important debate on strategy, which we do not do as well as we should. At the moment, we are tactically responsive and react to events rather than shaping them and looking over the horizon.

Strategy is all about having an objective to maintain or alter the status quo using available means and, indeed, willing alliances. The plan is about how to achieve that outcome with energy policy, weapons treaties, cyber resilience and capabilities, the use of sanctions, our defence posture, what we want to spend on our military might, and the friendships that we then wish to stretch out and advance, such as with Ukraine.

When it comes to strategy, having worked in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and the Ministry of Defence, it is clear that we can and must do better, given what is coming over the horizon. Jack Welch, the former CEO of General Electric, once wrote that

“when the rate of change inside an institution becomes slower than the rate of change outside, the end is in sight. The only question is when.”

To transfer that to the world’s activities today, our world is moving very fast and we in the UK, and in the west more widely, are not keeping up. I would argue that that change is happening 10 times faster than in the industrial revolution of the late 18th and 19th centuries, at 100 times the scale and with 1,000 times the impact.

This timely debate on strategically understanding and responding to the security threat from Russia centres on the three core themes that I have progressively promoted in this Chamber for some time: first, the increased disunity and timidity of the west; secondly, the rising influence of authoritarian states exploiting that timidity to ruthlessly pursue their agendas; and thirdly, the increasingly technological digital world and our ability to continuously adapt and harness the changing character of conflict.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

Given my right hon. Friend’s experience of working in both Departments, what meetings does he think are taking place daily in Government on a cross-departmental basis in response to the crisis and generally to monitor what Russia does?

[Mr Ellwood]

I will explore that in more detail. Certainly, our gathering of the intelligence picture is second to none—we do that extremely well indeed—but today I will make an argument about our appetite to step forward and fill the vacuum that, I am afraid, has been temporarily left by the United States.

To go back to the three key themes, first, we have the state of the west. I believe that in the last decade we witnessed the high tide mark of post-cold war western liberalism. That is quite a statement to make in this Chamber. Since 9/11, a new form of asymmetric warfare has dominated western attention, but it has distracted us from the international rules-based order and recognising and supporting the importance of bolstering and updating the rules that we want to follow, which we earned after the second world war. We have not kept up with shifting power bases, new technologies and emerging threats.

As I alluded to, the United States—the one country that we look to for leadership—is missing in action, distracted and polarised by what is happening in its domestic scene. That is likely to get worse with the coming mid-terms.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

rose—

[Mr Ellwood]

I will not give way, as I have already done so once and I am conscious of the time.

The United States has temporarily retreated from the global stage, and there is a gap on the world stage for leadership that Britain should and—I hope—could fill.

Secondly, we have the rising influence of authoritarian states. Our adversaries are taking advantage of our weakness and becoming bolder, more confident and more assertive. They sense the west’s weakness. That is why we saw Putin not hesitate to invade Georgia and the Crimea as he sought to strike back in concern about NATO’s growing membership of former Warsaw pact countries. Such countries have joined both NATO and the EU. Retaliatory sanctions were of course imposed, but, given our reliance on Russia’s oil and gas, their impact was limited.

Finally, as other hon. Members have touched on, we have the fast-changing character of conflict, which Russia is excelling at. The strategic context that we face today is increasingly complex, dynamic and competitive. We face constant political warfare designed to erode our economic, political and social cohesion. Russia’s goal is to win without war fighting: to break our willpower and harness attacks below the threshold that would normally warrant a war fighting response. Russia excels at constant political conflict, deception, economic coercion, cyber-interference, large-scale disinformation and manipulation of elections, all underpinned by strong-arm tactics and military intimidation. That is what hybrid war looks like.

I argue that any threat can be measured by a simple formula: the product of the ability and intention to engage minus our ability and commitment to defend ourselves and our interests. During the cold war, Russia backed down over Cuba knowing that the United States would not turn a blind eye. But Russia’s ability to engage in conflict has dramatically improved in the last decade. It has made significant investments in all three of its military services—its army, air force and navy—as well as spilling out into the weaponisation of space, hypersonic missiles, as have been mentioned, and cyber capabilities. It is also developing a worrying alliance with China, sharing protocols and doctrines.

We need to understand Russia’s desire to engage and cause conflict. That requires an appreciation of its leader. Putin has long held the view that the west is to blame for the demise of the Soviet Union, not least because the privatisation of Russia’s nationalised industries saw so much Russian money leaving the country for the west. He believes that the west deliberately seeks to keep Russia weak; his goal since coming to power has therefore been to revive Russia as a global power that will again command respect from the west. Putin has long held the view that the west is to blame for the demise of the Soviet Union, not least because the privatisation of Russia’s nationalised industries saw so much Russian money leaving the country for the west. He believes that the west deliberately seeks to keep Russia weak; his goal since coming to power has therefore been to revive Russia as a global power that will again command respect from the west.

Putin’s strategy is very clear indeed. First, he needed to secure his own domestic power base by silencing his critics, controlling the message and providing an enemy for the nation to rally against. That is straight from the authoritarianism playbook: procure an external enemy on which domestic shortfalls can be blamed, and against which the population can rally when fed propaganda via state-controlled media. With that largely achieved, his second mission is to return Russia to superpower status, using its well-harnessed grey zone skillsets to expand Russia’s influence to counter the expansion of NATO and the European Union, specifically focusing on the Russian-speaking diasporas in neighbouring states.

Last month, an ever-confident Putin went further, effectively declaring that he wanted a new Warsaw pact to turn back history—back to the USSR. His ultimatum to the west starts with the obvious—the renunciation of any further enlargement of NATO to the east—but then demands that the US withdraw its protection from the 14 eastern European and Balkan states that have become members of NATO in the last 24 years.

All this, of course, is unacceptable to the west and to NATO members, which makes the prospect of an invasion ever more likely. That is the immediate threat to Ukraine. After the loss of the former Ukrainian President, Putin’s ally, it was clear that Ukraine would eventually join both NATO and the EU, which would see the western organisations rubbing up against the Russian border. That, for Putin, was unacceptable.

Let us put ourselves in Putin’s shoes. Would there be a better time to invade eastern Ukraine than right now? Over time, Ukraine will rearm and move closer to the west, making any invasion more of a challenge. That is why there are not just 100,000 infantry on the border, but special forces, field hospitals and missile systems—way beyond what would be needed just as a leveraging chip in discussions with the United States.

Russia is aware of the financial sanctions, but they will be limited because any impact on Russia will also affect its trading partners. Russia will, of course, retaliate with its energy provision to Europe, and in the long term it will simply expedite a closer relationship with China.

This is about more than just Ukraine. Russia is restoring its authoritarian clout in the international arena to the point that it is able to dictate its own terms in shaping the international community. It would not have taken NATO much hardware to deter Russia and make Putin think twice. I hear the argument that NATO is a defensive organisation and Ukraine is not a member, but that is a simplistic view of the threat picture, with potentially grave consequences for eastern European security, and it will embolden other authoritarian regimes to pursue their agendas to expand their own influence.

Where does that leave the west and the UK? We need to wake up and recognise just how fragile and dangerous our world has become. A question that I pose regularly to this House is whether we think the world will be more or less stable in the next five years; we know the answer. We have so many fires that have been left unextinguished—for example in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen and even Bosnia and Kashmir, where governance and security are starting to erode and fail. The bigger geopolitical threats, of course, are Russia and China. With two Presidents for life sitting in Moscow and Beijing with more power and time than they know what to do with, it is obvious that we must wake up to this crunch point in our history.

How we in the west conduct ourselves over the next five years could determine how the next five decades play out. If America chooses to step back, it does not mean that Britain should do the same. We are a nation that steps forward when others hesitate, as our history illustrates. If we do not, who will? That does not mean that we do all the heavy lifting, but our hard and soft power assets remain strong. What we are missing is the appetite once again to play a more influential role and offer the statecraft and thought leadership that the west is currently missing.

I make it very clear: we need a reality check. We need to stop kidding ourselves that we garner so much influence as senior members of the United Nations Security Council, NATO, the G7 and the Commonwealth, when those very organisations no longer harbour the clout or the vision to handle our modern and complex world. Power bases and alliances are shifting fast, but we seem to be in denial. The west needs to quickly remind itself what it stands for, what it believes in and what it is willing to defend.

To conclude, we need a Russia strategy. Our current trajectory on Russia is to see it slide progressively ever closer to China. I make the bigger point that this will be China’s century. How the world adapts to that is a whole other debate, but as we debate today what Russia is doing, would it not be easier to contest and challenge where China is going if we turned Russia 180° over the next decade, so that it is closer to the west than it is to the east? That would be a strategy that I think we could all agree with.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I hope it is not. I have been in post for only two weeks, so I am doing as much as I can as quickly as I can.

Sadly, we know all too well that Russia has a record of flagrantly violating international law. We are at the forefront of efforts to end Russia’s illegitimate control of the Crimean peninsula, and Crimea is, of course, Ukraine. We used our G7 presidency last year to maintain a high level of international engagement on that, and the UK also supports the international Crimea Platform in its work to hold Russia to account.

Meanwhile, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) mentioned, Russian interference in the western Balkans threatens to undermine the region’s hard-won security. We take this extremely seriously and will continue to work with our partners to strengthen stability, democracy and the rule of law. To demonstrate this commitment, the Foreign Secretary brought together the Foreign Ministers of the six western Balkan countries on 13 December. Our new special envoy to the western Balkans, Sir Stuart Peach, visited Bosnia and Herzegovina on 16 December and will be back in the region soon.

[Mr Ellwood]

I welcome my hon. Friend to his post. Given the challenges and threats to our national and international security, does he agree it is now time to increase defence spending to 3% of GDP?

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I will arrange a meeting for my right hon. Friend with the Chancellor so he can press that point.

I am also grateful to my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton), who visited the region and built strong relationships. She was instrumental in demonstrating our commitment in this area.

I am wary of the time, so I will move on to a major concern that most Members articulated. The Government, like most hon. Members, are deeply concerned about the forced closure of human rights groups such as Memorial, which was closed down in the past few days. The work of this particular internationally respected group of historians and human rights experts is vital to defending human rights and preserving the memories of victims of political repression in Russia. The group has worked tirelessly for decades to ensure that the abuses of the Soviet era are never forgotten, and its closure is yet another chilling blow to freedom of expression in Russia. That demonstrates what my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale) said about the gradual and ruthless suppression of dissent, human rights and media freedoms in the country.

The UK has been at the forefront of calling out Russia’s malicious cyber activity, in solidarity with our international partners. In 2020, in tandem with the European Union, we announced sanctions against the Russian intelligence services for cyber-attacks against the UK and our allies. Last month, we set out our new national cyber strategy, backed by £2.6 billion of funding, to help to protect the United Kingdom and our international partners. We are developing an autonomous UK cyber sanctions regime. Our sanctions are carefully targeted to respond to hostile acts, and to defend freedom and democracy. That includes sanctions on 180 individuals and 48 entities for the destabilisation of Crimea, Sevastopol and eastern Ukraine. We also announced asset freezes and travel bans against 13 individuals and an entity involved in the attempted murder of Alexei Navalny, the Russian Opposition politician.

We have taken multiple other actions to address the Russian threat in recent years. As we set out in our response to the Intelligence and Security Committee’s Russia report in July 2020, this includes new legislation to stop individuals at the UK border to determine whether they are, or have been, involved in hostile state activity. We have provided the security services and law enforcement with additional tools to tackle evolving state threats.

We take the threat from Russia extremely seriously. We are working closely with our allies and partners to set a strong, united, consistent signal that Russian aggression will have severe consequences. We will continue to engage with the Russian Government on matters of international peace and security, to address global challenges facing the world, including climate change and the coronavirus pandemic. We will also use these channels to raise any wider issues of concern to us.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tobias Ellwood Excerpts

Thursday 20th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr McLoughlin]

That has been mentioned to me, and I will certainly want to look into it. I will write to the hon. Gentleman in more detail.

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

Pokesdown railway station, in my constituency, is in dire need of upgrade. The lifts have not worked for a number of decades. In response to a parliamentary question, the Minister said that we should blame South West Trains. I wrote to South West Trains, and it said that we should blame the Government, because that is not part of the franchise agreement. All that the people of Bournemouth want is for the lifts to be working. May I invite the Minister to come to Bournemouth to take a look at the situation?

[Stephen Hammond]

My hon. Friend will know that the Government support local decisions by local communities on improving local connectivity, but I am happy to accept his kind invitation.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tobias Ellwood Excerpts

Thursday 19th December 2013 Commons Chamber

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

T6. Bournemouth continues to delight in the town’s football club’s promotion to the championship—a mere stepping stone on the way to the premiership, no doubt. The slip road from the A38 to the stadium functions well, but there is no access back on to the dual carriageway. Now that a school is to be built in the same area, may I ask the Minister to look down the back of the sofa and see whether some pinchpoint funding could be found for this urgent infrastructure project?

[Mr Goodwill]

I know that my hon. Friend was disappointed that the scheme in Bournemouth was not included in the recent tranche of 25 pinchpoint jam-busting schemes. When Bournemouth is promoted to the premiership, it will be even more important that disappointed away fans do not have to go into Bournemouth on their way home, as the Cherries continue to advance through the tables.

Railways

Tobias Ellwood Excerpts

Thursday 25th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Burns]

I am spoiled for choice, so I will give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East.

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

The important issue of whether ownership should be private or public has been raised, and I hope my right hon. Friend will assure me that he agrees that railways in private ownership are better run than those in public ownership. Certain countries in Europe, however, still have a tight grasp of public ownership of their railways, and I therefore hope he will encourage liberalisation of the market so that private companies can invest into markets throughout Europe.

[Mr Burns]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and he can certainly have that assurance. We lead the way in Europe on liberalisation of the rail market, followed closely by the Dutch, the Swedish and the Germans, seeking to—

Portland Search and Rescue Helicopter

Tobias Ellwood Excerpts

Wednesday 19th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Richard Drax]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

This campaign is not just about one MP. Other hon. Members are here for the debate and they are equally concerned about the future of Portland’s search and rescue helicopter. We represent tens of thousands of people along the south coast who are worried, many of whom have campaigned tirelessly in the past months to help me. This is a team effort and I pay tribute to, and thank, all who have contributed to the battle to save our helicopter. It would be negligent of me not to pay special tribute to all crews of search and rescue helicopters in the United Kingdom, and in particular to ours in South Dorset.

I will begin by telling a story about a fishing boat called the Purbeck Isle. Sadly, it sank recently and we lost three young fishermen. The search went on for three days non-stop and could only be carried out effectively by helicopter because the search area was so huge. The helicopters had to refuel a number of times. If it were not for the Portland base, they would have had to fly some 21 to 25 minutes to Lee-on-the-Solent before refuelling and coming back. That would have meant being away from the search area for at least an hour. The current water temperature in most of the United Kingdom means that people can survive for about 10 minutes before they become unconscious, and 30 minutes before their core is so cold they die—those are the maximum times.

I remind the House that the initial funding for the helicopter came from the private finance initiative, which was cancelled by the coalition Government in February 2011.

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

I congratulate my hon. Friend on the work he has done, and I join him in supporting all the crews who work so tirelessly to keep our seas safe. Does he agree that the mess the previous Government made of that PFI deal—the fact that decisions were not made then—is why we are confronted with this awful situation today?

[Richard Drax]

I agree with my hon. Friend to a certain extent, but when there was an earlier attempt to remove the helicopter, my predecessor was able to keep it because of PFI. In those days the Government were able to throw more taxpayers’ money at retaining it. Sadly, I am not in that position. The proposal has been put out to contract under the Official Journal of the European Union, which states certain key user requirements. As long as those requirements are met—at least theoretically, and that is the point—the Department for Transport assumed that no consultation was necessary. The previous Secretary of State for Transport, my right hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Justine Greening), wrote to me and said that no consultation was necessary because she was “improving the service”. That presumption was criticised by me and many others. It has now been criticised strongly by the Select Committee on Transport, which has called on the Government to rethink their proposal.

The Portland helicopter operates in one of the busiest areas in the UK, and 25% of all coastguard call-outs come from there. It is illogical to close a base in the middle of all the action and rely on those further away. Cover should surely be provided close to where it is needed. Portland is only a 12-hour base, yet it compares favourably with its 24-hour neighbours—Solent, Culdrose and Chivenor. In 2011, the call-outs were: Portland 194; Solent 210; Culdrose 249; and Chivenor 272. Its helicopter is being called out as much as helicopters at the 24-hour stations.

Furthermore, the costings were wrong. When I first got involved, the Secretary of State assumed that the Portland base cost about £9 million a year to run. It does not. It is a 12-hour base and costs between £4 million and £5 million. If the Government think they will save money by closing the base, let me tell them that the money spent on diving casualties and flood rescues this year alone would pay for multiple helicopters. Portland costs half the amount of other bases and does almost the same number of taskings. That important point bears repeating.

The flying times were also wrong, and this relates to what the then Secretary of State was told by her advisers. The flying time from Culdrose to Portland is 48 to 54 minutes. If we add 15 minutes—the key user requirement to get the helicopter off the ground—we are looking at about 63 minutes. The flying time from Solent to Portland is between 21 and 25 minutes, plus the 15 minutes, which makes 36 minutes. The flying time from Chivenor to Portland is 37 minutes, plus the 15 minutes, which makes 52 minutes. That is on the basis that the air is still, conditions are perfect and no wind is blowing. As we all know, helicopters are not called out to rescue people unless something has happened—normally in stormy weather. In the sea, a person has 10 minutes before they are unconscious—that is the maximum in current sea temperatures—and 30 minutes before their core temperature drops and they are dead. Not one of the proposed helicopter bases would meet that time. All the people in the water—children, mothers, grannies, whoever—would be dead.

The other helicopters—at the three other bases I have mentioned—are as busy as ours. The point I have made repeatedly to the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond) is that one helicopter can only be in one place at any one time—however new, however fast, it can only be in one place at any one time. So if the Lee-on-the-Solent helicopter, and we will have to rely on that, is called to the east of its basing area, we can add to the 21—or 36—minutes at least another half hour or even an hour because that is how long it will take to get back to its base, having completed its task, to refuel and to come to us. And the people in the water? They would be dead.

On concurrent call-outs—when the other helicopters are in the air at the same time as ours—I have documentation proving that, in the past 14 months, the Portland helicopter responded to 21 incidents at the same time as the Solent helicopter. My helpful and moderate letter from the Under-Secretary, dated 17 December, includes a table on tasking concurrency. It lists the call-outs for Lee, Portland and Chivenor in 2009, 2010 and 2011. According to these figures, tasking concurrency happened three times in 2009, once in 2010 and once in 2011. Why, then, do we have other figures stating that on 21 occasions the helicopter at Lee-on-the-Solent was in the air and doing a task at the same time as the Portland helicopter? Something is seriously wrong, and I urge Ministers to look at the modelling, which I believe is fatally flawed. Someone somewhere has got their maths wrong.

Over the past 10 months, 25 out of the 32 transfers to Dorset county hospitals were so life threatening that the Civil Aviation Authority regulations were waived so that the helicopter could land at the hospital. According to Department for Transport figures, every road death, which equates to a water death—it is the nearest we have got—costs £1.6 million. On the basis of those figures, we save about £40 million by having the helicopter at Portland. If the Government needed any lessons on saving money, that is a pretty stark example.

Sadly, all this is being compounded by the proposals to close the maritime rescue co-ordination centre. They, too, are criticised by the Select Committee. The local resilience forum is particularly concerned. The Government said there would be no cuts to front-line services. I wonder what these are: no emergency towing vessels in England or Wales; no offshore firefighting capability, because the marine instant response group was withdrawn; a proposal that more than 50% of the co-ordination centres should go; and two helicopters going—ours and another—reducing the number of bases from 12 to 10. If these are not front-line services, I would love to know what the definition of a front-line service is, because to me that is the very coal face that the search and rescue capability depends on.

It is not just search and rescue that our Portland helicopter is involved in. It also works with the police and the ambulance service—yes, we have a charitable air ambulance, as do many counties, but it is small and does not have a winch. Without a winch, it can land only at certain places, so on many occasions the Portland search and rescue helicopter is called to help. The air base played a major role at the Olympics—TV companies, VIPs, business; you name it, it was used. Then there are pan and mayday alerts, and let us not forget the Channel Islands, which are also in the Portland helicopter’s area of responsibility.

I would like to thank the Under-Secretary, —he is not the Minister currently sitting on the Front Bench; it is hard to track the right Minister down when trying to fight one’s case—for his letter. To be fair, he has seen me and listened to me, and when he got his facts wrong about the timing from Culdrose to Portland—he initially thought it was 21 minutes, until I said, “By Concorde, yes,”—he wrote a helpful letter saying that the flying time is actually 48 minutes. These are fairly serious errors.

Those on the Front Bench are very intelligent, capable men and women, but I urge them please to come down to Dorset and listen to those involved in search and rescue along our coast. I am a former soldier, and I cannot think of any major decision where one would not appreciate what one was about to do beforehand. It is military training; it is civilian training; it is what we all do—we make an appreciation. To do that we must go on a reconnaissance mission; and to do that we need to go up front as a commanding officer and look over the land that we are about to move over or perhaps the hill that we are going to attack. We do not just sit there in our bunker, look out and say, “Onwards men! There’s the hill! Go and take it! I’m having some breakfast”—and off they go and they get slaughtered. That is what happened in the first world war.

It is that important. I cannot request enough—it must be at least three, four or five times now—that someone comes down to Dorset and listens to those intimately involved. I do not pour scorn on civil servants—they have a very important role to play—but sitting back in Whitehall pressing computer buttons, playing with their modelling and making pretty circles on maps is not really the way to come to a logical conclusion. If someone came down to Dorset and listened to people—this is another thing that really appals me—they would find that they are frightened to speak their minds. Why is that? Because if they do, they will lose their jobs. Is that not unbelievable? In this democracy of ours, in which millions have died to allow me to stand here and speak, the people who should be giving the Government the proper advice that they need are too frightened to do so, because if they do, they will lose their jobs. That is utterly outrageous.

Let us for once, as a Government, stand up and start leading. I say this: “Come down and listen. Listen, and listen. Do not talk; you can do that when you get back to your office. Listen, and I am convinced that once you have done that, Ministers will change their minds, or at least will start thinking about the whole process again.”

In a letter to the Government, the Transport Select Committee said:

“There are understandable concerns that the withdrawal of these bases will lead to…increased fatalities”.

The Under-Secretary took the view that that was entirely different from saying that lives would be lost. I have to disagree: temperate language was rightly used to a Government Department by a responsible and highly influential Select Committee.

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.

Rail Reform

Tobias Ellwood Excerpts

Thursday 8th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I was up in Scotland only last week, having some helpful discussions about high-speed rail and improving connectivity with Scotland on the railway network. Scotland has a devolved settlement for transport, but I have no doubt that the Scottish Government will look carefully at my proposals today. I am always happy to talk to the Scottish Government about how we can work together to get better value out of those cross-border services.

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

Is it not curious that Labour Members always choose to gloss over their responsibilities when we debate these issues? It is their report that we are debating—the McNulty report—which says that there are £3 billion of efficiencies to be had. I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the leadership that she is showing in bringing together the Government and the rail networks to achieve better service for our customers.