International Travel

Jim McMahon Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the Transport Secretary for prior sight of the statement, although I should say for the record that it arrived only five minutes before it was due to be made. I am not sure that is quite in the spirit of things, and it might be worth taking that back to officials to make sure it does not happen again. However, I should say that he made the effort to give me a call today, which is appreciated.

The Government’s response to the covid-19 crisis has been nothing short of chaotic. At almost every turn they have lacked a clear strategy, and that failure has been acutely felt in aviation. For months, even when the virus was at its peak, millions of passengers were coming from all over the world without any restrictions placed on them at all. By the time restrictions were introduced, we were one of only a handful of countries in the world that up to that point had failed to take action to put them in place. It is this pattern of the Government being too slow to act, coupled with blunt interventions to overcompensate, that has dogged the handling of the pandemic right from the outset.

First, there was a blunt quarantine for all, bar France, but then France was back on. Then air corridors were on the table; then they were not. What we then saw was not really air corridors, air bridges or whatever name is given to them, but essentially a list produced by the Foreign Office, half of the countries on which had placed restrictions on British travellers going there—no travel corridor or air bridge at all. Now we are seeing countries coming and going off the list, with very little notice for those who have decided to go on holiday and incurred the cost of doing so.

It is all very well for the Government now to change position and tell people that they should travel with their eyes open. It was not that long ago that the Government were defending a very senior member of No. 10 for driving for an eye test, let alone going with eyes fully open. The British public are not stupid. They understand fully the pandemic and what it means to everyday life, but people work hard, and they are desperate to return to a sense of normality. For many, that one holiday a year is something they save up for and look forward to, but they cannot afford a 14-day quarantine to be imposed with very little notice.

We need to see when the data was really made available. We all know that localised and regional data is made available across Europe, so why was it not reviewed when the decision was made in Spain, for instance, to have the restrictions on the islands? The point was made at the time and the Government did not move, but it strikes me that the evidence base was in place, so it makes sense to publish that evidence in the House of Commons Library, so that it can be reviewed.

We need to make sure that we do not take this intervention all the time. It appears chaotic because it is chaotic. There will not be a single intervention in itself that will keep this country safe; it will be a number of interventions taken together that make us safe, and a key part of that is testing. Frankly, it is beyond belief that people arrive in this country from all over the world without any tests being carried out, either at the airport or five days later. It is important that we now carry out a full review, not just of quarantine in the very blunt sense that the Government approach it, but also to ensure that a proper test and tracking system is in place. In my town, the national contact tracing system has failed to get through to half of those it should have made contact with. When we have that infrastructure and such weak performance, it is little surprise that the Government are constantly going from one crisis to another.

Aviation is on its knees. The limited support offered by the Government has meant job losses all over the place, in a sector that was always going to take longer to recover than other parts of the economy. The Government knew that, but even with the money given over to the airlines, where are the conditions to protect workers’ rights? It is a scandal that hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money is being given out with no conditions to protect the workers at British Airways or easyJet, and the rights that they have built up.

Labour’s position is clear. We have set out a plan for a sectoral deal, with six key conditions, supporting jobs, tackling climate change and providing fair play on tax. It is important that the Government now come forward with a proper sectoral deal. We will absolutely work in partnership, in the national interest, but the Government cannot continue to go from one crisis to another, because key to beating the virus is maintaining public support. I have to tell the Transport Secretary that we are in real danger of losing that support.

[Grant Shapps]

I apologise to the hon. Gentleman for not getting the statement to him. I do not know why that happened, and I will make inquiries. As he mentions, I did call in advance, unrelated to the statement itself.

This is not a virus that any of us control, beyond the way in which we all behave individually and the extent to which we all have contact that we perhaps should not be having. It is easy to come to the Dispatch Box and be a professor of hindsight, saying, “You should have done this. You shouldn’t have done that.” If the hon. Gentleman could explain to me how he can find out that one week Jamaica will have three or five cases per 100,000 and the next week be breaching 20 cases per 100,000, even though the Joint Biosecurity Centre, Public Health England and all the other experts were unable to predict it, I would be the first to welcome that kind of detailed information and knowledge. It does not exist. I believe that no country in the world has combined as much information as has been pulled together here in order to work on a detailed island policy. In fact, it is difficult to think of another country in Europe that is doing more testing than the UK now, with testing capacity of a third of a million tests per day, going up to half a million today. I was speaking to my opposite number from France, who told me that there they would reach 400,000 tests a week—in this country, we can do that in a day and a half.

Our NHS test and trace system, combined with the passenger locator form, has enabled us to extract very specific data to know where infections are coming back from, and that has been extraordinarily useful. I reiterate—I cannot say it any more clearly, and I am grateful for the opportunity to say it again—that in these times when we travel we must accept that we have to go with our eyes open. I gave the example of Jamaica, but, unfortunately, the same thing exists everywhere else. I am not sure what the hon. Gentleman is suggesting. Is he saying that we should not have travel corridors at all and we should prevent everybody from travelling? That cannot be the case, because he tells us that he wants to support the aviation sector. In which case, some kind of corridors must be open, otherwise we would not be supporting it.

That is why we have pumped an enormous amount of money, via the British taxpayer, into supporting the aviation sector. Off the top of my head, 56,400 members of staff are using the furlough scheme, which will add up to well over £1 billion. There is a £1.8 billion fund, the Bank of England’s covid corporate financing facility, which has supported aviation-specific companies and there have been all manner of other funds, including the coronavirus job retention scheme, from which £283 million has gone to the aviation sector.

Of course we want the aviation sector to get going again. As I mentioned towards the end of my statement—I will come back to the House on this— testing is a part of that, but I also explained the complexity of testing on day zero. I did not hear whether that is what the Opposition Front-Bench team are calling for, but there are significant issues with testing on day zero in a manner that will not necessarily find those who are carrying the virus but that will convince lots of people that they are not. That approach is not the answer. We are working on all those things, and I encourage the hon. Gentleman to work with us, rather than score points from us, when everybody is trying to the right thing, nationwide, to beat this virus.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jim McMahon Excerpts

Thursday 2nd July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

My hon. Friend is right: the e-scooters brought forward due to the pandemic will be an excellent and eco-friendly way of getting around—I can see that many Members across the House are looking forward to getting on their e-scooters. They will, I am afraid, in the first place be available to those with driving or provisional licences. That is not through desire, but because of a quirk in the law—we are tackling a law from, I think, 1880, which, with great foresight, banned e-scooters long before they were invented. That was one way to allow trials to go ahead right now.

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

I pay tribute to our transport workers and reflect on those who have lost their lives to the coronavirus. Our economy is experiencing major shock. There is no doubt that the foundations were weakened after a lost decade of austerity and the failure to invest properly in our regions that make up the northern powerhouse. Had the north seen the same per-person investment as London over the past decade, it would have received £66 billion more. Even before the pandemic hit, estimates by the UK2070 Commission recommended investment of £15 billion each year for 20 years. Will the Secretary of State outline how much capital investment has been awarded to the north?

[Grant Shapps]

As the hon. Gentleman will know, I am the northern powerhouse Minister in the Cabinet, so I take this very seriously indeed. I do not want to disappoint him, but there are so many different elements of funding going into the northern powerhouse right now that it is difficult to provide an immediate figure for the total. I would be happy to undertake to write to him with those precise details, but I can tell them that it is billions.

[Jim McMahon]

I am not sure that my pre-prepared response quite expected the Secretary of State not to know the answer to the question about how much money has been allocated, but we can guess: it is a drop in the ocean. It will be a drop in the ocean when compared with the historic funding gap of £66 billion. It will be a drop in the ocean when compared with the £15 billion annual allocation, as recommended by the Commission.

We were promised a plan to level up Britain. We were told that we were at war with the virus, yet when it came to a Marshall fund, the nation was failed. The Government failed on ambition; they failed on scale; and in doing so they failed the hard-working people of the north. Let us be generous and accept that what has gone has gone. Today, will the Secretary of State commit, in future allocations, to the north receiving no less than the capital?

[Grant Shapps]

That is a lot of rhetoric, but, if the hon. Gentleman likes, I will go into some of the money that is being spent. For example, there is the trans-Pennine route, a multi-billion pound upgrade of the route from Manchester to Leeds. Then we have an extra £10 million initially to sort out the Manchester corridor, which was announced by the Prime Minister on Tuesday. There is the High Speed North project, which runs into multi-billions. I will write to him, and I hope that he will come back to the Dispatch Box surprised and perhaps withdraw his words when he sees the multi-billion pounds that are being spent in the north right now.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jim McMahon Excerpts

Monday 18th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We now come to Jim McMahon. I congratulate him on his new job.

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. May I start by paying tribute to our frontline transport workers, and may I offer my condolences to the families of those who have lost their lives through covid-19?

The latest advice from the Government now explicitly rules out providing personal protective equipment, such as face masks, to drivers, instead reserving them for health and social care workers. The response on this is that the health advice apparently does not support it. If the evidence says that masks will not save them, gloves will not save them and banning the handling of cash will not save them, that begs the question: what will save them, given that transport workers, including bus drivers, are more likely to die from covid-19 than the general population? Can that evidence be provided to the House of Commons Library so that it can be properly looked at and investigated? We cannot allow transport workers on the frontline, working to keep our country moving, to face a greater risk than the general population.

[Andrew Stephenson]

I start by welcoming the shadow Secretary of State to his position. It continues to be Public Health England advice that face masks are not necessary outside clinical settings or where Health and Safety Executive employer risk assessments suggest that it would be necessary to protect against non-covid-19 risks. However, workers should refer to the guidance, which I mentioned, when considering whether wearing a face covering would be appropriate and they should consider using a face covering when social distancing is not possible.

Covid-19: Transport

Jim McMahon Excerpts

Tuesday 12th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of the statement. I also thank him for the way in which he has maintained communication and shown a willingness to work together in the national interest.

I know that everyone in this House and at home will join me in sending our thanks to all transport workers across the country. As with all our frontline workers, they are the very best of us. It is so important that we give a voice to those workers. Even today, the official advice is found wanting and it will lead to confusion. The scenes we saw yesterday on public transport were unsurprising when the Government ordered a return to work with 12 hours’ notice but without the guidance being in place on how people can be kept safe. May I therefore ask the Secretary of State why his announcement was not made before the Prime Minister’s statement on Sunday?

Secondly, the Government have produced guidance for bus passengers and operators, but it leaves too much to chance and fails to protect frontline workers. It risks a postcode lottery on standards and protection, and there is far too much “should”, “could”, “not always possible” and “as much as you can”, rather than clear, directive guidance. For bus drivers, for instance, the guidance is that PPE should not be used, but instead reserved for health and care staff. That is despite shocking figures released by the Office for National Statistics that show professional drivers, including those operating taxis, private hire vehicles, buses and goods vehicles, have some of the highest covid-19 fatality rates in the country. May I therefore ask the Secretary of State for the evidence base to support the position that the provision of PPE should not be provided for frontline staff on transport? What discussions have taken place to ensure co-operation across our devolved nations to offer clear and consistent standards for transport, such as buses and rail that, of course, crosses from nation to nation?

When the Secretary of State says he announced last week a £2 billion fund for cycling, it sounded awfully familiar. Will he confirm that that actually is not new money, but was instead announced pre-lockdown back in February? In that context, can he confirm whether it has now been paid to local councils?

The Secretary of State touched on the aviation sector in the guidance that has been produced. A number of airlines have already announced a significant number of redundancies, affecting tens of thousands of jobs directly and throughout the supply chain.

Even as we transition to a green economy, protecting jobs now so that people can be reskilled for the future is critical. It will be far easier to transition from a point of strength rather than of weakness. The Government have failed to offer a sectoral deal for aviation. There is a real chance to set conditions on staff wages, payments to UK-based suppliers, a shift to green technology, demand that those who seek our help pay fairly into the tax system, as well as halt the payment of shareholder dividends. Why have the Government failed to act?

Aviation is not alone. We have seen this with ferry operators and the announcement of more than 1,100 jobs at risk with P&O. The Prime Minister’s 14-day quarantine proposal is a total mess. It states that everyone must be quarantined, unless they come from anywhere in the world via France, which is one of the worst affected countries in Europe after the UK. Will the Government produce the scientific advice that justifies why France should be exempt from that policy? Why have the Government decided that now is the time to implement this measure, two months after other countries introduced it? More than 18 million passengers have entered the UK since January. Will the Government publish the scientific advice that led to that change now and not earlier?

Finally, we urgently need a comprehensive plan for transport. The public rightly demand an end to the chaos surrounding the exit plan. The risk is not just that more lives will be lost needlessly, but that the economic damage will be far deeper, hurting our communities for a generation to come. The Opposition will continue to work together in the national interest, but the Secretary of State must take a message back to the Cabinet table: no more confusion, no more reckless briefings, and no more delay. This is a national crisis that needs a Government who are fit to respond to it, and we hope for the country that that comes sooner, rather than later.

[Grant Shapps]

I welcome the hon. Gentleman and congratulate him on his new post. He is right to raise a number of those issues, in particular the extraordinary work being done by our transport workers. I thought it might be worth updating the House on the latest information I have about the number of those who have sadly died with covid-19, although that was not necessarily through their jobs—we do not know. The latest number I have from Transport for London is 42 people, and on Network Rail, including train operating companies, the latest number I have is 10. Our thoughts are with all their friends and families at this difficult time.

The hon. Gentleman is right to mention concerns about overcrowding, and I contacted the office of the Mayor of London regarding Transport for London. We are working closely with him to try to ensure that the number of services is ramped up quickly. As I said in my opening comments, however, we can have 100% of services, but that will not prevent overcrowding because social distancing now requires much more space. I am working proactively with the Mayor to try to bring in as much marshalling as possible by TfL, and elsewhere, including on Network Rail. We have been working with the British Transport Police who even yesterday deployed several hundred people. Most of all, I appeal to the public to listen to our message, and to please avoid public transport unless they absolutely need to take it as a key worker. People should look for alternative means of travel, either active, or by using their car if they have one available.

The hon. Gentleman said that the advice is not specific enough, and I hope he has had a chance to read it. Other commentators have said that it is surprisingly specific and detailed across all the different sectors, including the two pieces of advice that have been provided today. I do try to provide the balance. His wider point seems to be that the advice is not specific enough, for example on what bus operators should do. Buses look and feel different throughout different parts of the country, depending on the make and model, and on the systems run by local bus operators. It is not possible to provide that level of advice company by company, operator by operator, because TfL will be very different to a Metro tram operator. We have provided very good overall advice. Our officials are working closely with the operators, unions, and others, and much of the advice is very similar. We all know about social distancing, washing hands, and the basics.

The hon. Gentleman also asked about the evidence base, and I would be happy to organise a briefing for him on that. Public Health England, and the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, have been very clear that there is no case for the use of medical level PPE in transportation. It depends, of course, on what someone is doing. Sitting in a cab driving a train is a fairly solitary activity, so there is no requirement in such a situation, but if someone has more contact with the public, things will vary. I extend to him, as I have done to others, the offer of a briefing on these matters. In fact, either tomorrow or Thursday we are giving a joint briefing to which I have invited unions and operators of buses and other forms of transport.

The hon. Gentleman also queried the £2 billion for cycling. I made this point clear when I announced the money. He will recall from before his time in this role that we announced £5 billion for bikes and buses. Some of this money—£1.7 billion—is part of that funding, as I said when I made the announcement. We have brought it forward so that we can get on with it, particularly given the emergency situation and the need to widen pavements and provide thoroughfares for cycling.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the airlines. I welcome the shift in tone from that of his predecessor, who never once encouraged me to support aviation. I agree about jobs, but he is wrong to say there has not been the support there. Almost uniquely, the aviation sector has enjoyed something that has not been widely advertised, but I will let him into it: not only can the industry access the very generous support provided by our right hon. Friend the Chancellor of Exchequer, which he extended further an hour or so ago from this Dispatch Box, but, in addition to all the other Government support, aviation can enter into a process of discussion if the existing types of support are not sufficient. Without breaching commercial confidentiality, I can tell him that a number of such discussions between the Department and aviation organisations, be they airlines, airports or ground support companies, are taking place.

Similarly, on P&O, perhaps the hon. Gentleman did not spot it, but we have supported a range of maritime freight—in some cases, that has included P&O—to provide connectivity, not just from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, but between Great Britain and 26 other ports in Europe.

The policy of quarantining for 14 days is a Home Office lead. I understand the hon. Gentleman’s concerns, but I can tell him quite straightforwardly that, going into this crisis, the advice was not to instigate quarantining, mainly because we had millions of Brits to bring home, but also because, according to the scientists—I had this very conversation with the chief medical officer before the lockdown began and he explained it to me—it would at best have delayed things by three, four or five days; sadly, it would not have prevented us from experiencing the epidemic. Again, he is very welcome to see that advice.

As we come out of this, as we control the virus in this country, with the facilities now in place to track and trace and the number of tests that can be carried out, of course we very much need to stop it continuing. I look forward to working with the hon. Gentleman on that as well.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jim McMahon Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

It has taken seven minutes for the subject to be raised. I do not wish to disappoint my hon. Friend, but he will not have to wait very long. We will make an announcement next month.

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

I welcome the pre-announcement of the HS2 commitment, but our local services are important. Funds are being developed for a tram link from Bury to Middleton, and hopefully through to Oldham, but we need to connect the whole north-east of Greater Manchester. Will the Secretary of State commit to a meeting, at least, to discuss a link from Oldham to Ashton?