HS2

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Thursday 5th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

Absolutely.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

What is the status of the review if we go to the polls this autumn? My constituents see this as a pre-election bribe for the Government’s voters in the shires.

[Grant Shapps]

This project is too serious to be thinking in those terms, and I certainly was not when I asked Douglas Oakervee to carry out this review. As I have now said twice, this is about people’s lives and livelihoods and the ability of this country’s economy to function. Regardless of what happens when we finally get that election call, I hope there will be cross-party consensus to continue this important work on a cross-party basis and get the job done.

High Speed Rail (West Midlands - Crewe) Bill

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 15th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Fiona Bruce]

Absolutely.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford referred to the series of junctions on the M6. Junction 17 of the M6 at Sandbach in my constituency needs improvement to take the additional traffic that is increasingly burdening it, particularly because of the additional house building. It is one of the few junctions in the country without a roundabout serving it. Each morning, we see huge pressure, in particular from those commuting from Sandbach to Manchester and elsewhere. It is highly unsatisfactory and another priority that needs to be looked at—in my constituents’ view, looked at in preference to the proposed investment in HS2.

There is going to be an impact in my constituency, because while HS2 does not pass through it, it passes within yards of it. It will pass through Stanthorne and the Bostock Hall estate, literally within yards of Middlewich. Many of my constituents will be impacted—the quality of their lives will be impacted—by this without any compensation being available to them.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

The hon. Lady is making a compelling case. As a London MP, I want to point out that people on Wells House Road in my seat, which HS2 will pass through, do not welcome this development at all. They are already living on a building site seven days a week, and that will carry on for 10 years. The streets are not paved with gold, and even in London, people do not want this.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Thursday 2nd May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call Dr Huq.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

I think this a bit tangential to punctuality, Mr Speaker, but I might try to get it in. [Hon. Members: “Give it a shot.”] Will the Secretary of State honour the pledge he made to me on 17 July 2017? I realise that that is not a punctual request, but now is the time. I asked him about the mutual mistrust between NW10 residents and HS2, and he said that his door would always be open. Now that construction has started, they feel as though they are living in a war zone, a dustbowl and the longest and largest building site in Europe. So will he make a visit or sit down with me and my constituents to sort this out?

[Andrew Jones]

Yes, there was a little bit of a tangent in that question. I am not the HS2 Minister, but I can, having just checked with the person who is, say that she will be happy to meet the hon. Lady. We will set that meeting up soon.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Grayling]

I am very pleased that we managed to resolve the problem. My hon. Friend puts his finger on an important point. When the unexpected happens or an unintended consequence disrupts a community, the ministerial team and I will always try to do everything we can to ameliorate or change it.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

Yesterday’s judicial review on Heathrow was concerned only with the legality of the decision, not the merits of airport expansion. Given that this House has overwhelmingly affirmed that we face a climate emergency, surely a swift and easy way of meeting our obligations would be to cancel the third runway at Heathrow. Not only will it pollute my constituents’ lungs, but it is costing us the earth—literally.

[Chris Grayling]

I gently remind the hon. Lady that this Parliament voted with a majority of nearly 300 to designate the national policy statement because we recognise that we need to provide jobs for the future, economic opportunities, and indeed the wealth that will deliver the environmental technologies that will clean up this country and help to clean up the planet. As I said earlier, we have sought, and the Airports Commission has sought, to make sure that these expansion plans are consistent with those obligations. International aviation does present a challenge, but I do not believe that we are suddenly going to see it disappear in the future. International aviation is only likely to disappear if the cost of holidays and the cost of travel is put up by Labour.

Garden Bridge: Funding

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Friday 15th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

It has been a busy week for us all at work, with the intractable impasse of Brexit preoccupying most, but life goes on outside this unsolvable Rubik’s cube. I want to draw attention to a scandalous misconduct issue: the £50 million-plus spent on a flower-strewn bridge across the Thames on which zero construction ever occurred. At least £30 million of that comes from the coffers of the Department for Transport. I am pleased to have a Transport Minister before us today, but this ill-fated project is a huge, multidimensional issue that is cross-departmental in nature. I hope that he can share some insights into how this represents best value and best practice and how we can learn lessons so that we do not have a repetition of what has been a catalogue of errors.

[Sandy Martin (Ipswich) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend speaks about not having a repetition, but while this is possibly the largest example of public money being wasted on something that was never going to go ahead, public money has been wasted on other infrastructure projects, well after the time that it was obvious to anyone that they would not go ahead. Does she share my hope that we can stop this waste of public money in future?

[Dr Huq]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who, until his elevation to the Front Bench, was a fellow member of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, where we address these things all the time. He is bang on the money, as ever, and I will come to some of those points.

Certain words are associated with certain terms: Profumo—“scandal”; Suez—“crisis”; Grenfell—“tragedy”; Dunblane—“massacre”; and Clapham Common—“rail disaster”. That one was for the Rail Minister. The word “fiasco” should, I think, for ever more be associated with Garden Bridge. The Observer claimed last month that the project was scandalously mismanaged and would cost the taxpayer £43 million for nothing.

This is the biggest uninvestigated scandal by a long chalk. It is two to three times the size of the Kids Company scandal, which our Committee did investigate, and which was turned into a London theatrical musical. It is unlike Kids Company, however, in that there is nothing to show for it, and it is unlike Profumo and those other scandals in that it is a genuine scandal of which many people have never heard. We will never see anything about it in certain outlets. The now departed from here Chancellor George Osborne’s fingerprints are all over it, and it has been rendered invisible in the Evening Standard recently, since it all went wrong. I think the paper was quite cheerleading about it before, under its former editor. That editor is now editor of the “Today” programme, so we will never hear about it on the radio first thing in the morning over our cornflakes either.

Many of the so-called great and good are implicated in this whole affair. The right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) is among them. The national treasure Joanna Lumley, who had some success with the Ghurka issue, had less success in this instance. The project had been brewing since at least 2003. The Labour Mayor at the time, Ken Livingstone, flatly refused to do anything about it. His successor, the ex-Tooting MP and current post-holder Sadiq Khan, commissioned the report undertaken by my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge), which eviscerated the affair. After the evidence appeared, the plug was pulled. The indomitable Will Hurst of Architects’ Journal pondered:

“How was the Garden Bridge Trust able to spend £46m on a non-existent bridge?”

In fact, the figures after the final winding-up costs exceed that.

A brand-new report published by Dan Anderson of Fourth Street, a consultancy specialising in heritage lottery funding, has called the project an extraordinary waste of public money—more than £53 million in total, over 80% of which came from the public purse. The London Assembly member Tom Copley demanded to know exactly why the additional funds were not vetoed by officials when it was so obvious that the project was flailing, a point made a moment ago by my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Sandy Martin). As I said earlier, there was £30 million from the Department for Transport. Our northern colleagues—indeed, anyone outside the M25—expressed indignation about the fact that so much was spent on the bridge when, in a climate of austerity, transport upgrades and initiatives have not gone ahead. This is not just a London issue; it is wider than that.

In terms of cost, the garden bridge dwarfs previous scandals. I have already mentioned Kids Company. The cash for honours scandal resulted in an £18 million loss. Arms to Iraq cost £4 million, and the parliamentary expenses scandal £2.5 million. Only the Northern Ireland renewable heat initiative cost more. However, there has been an astonishing lack of repercussions in this case.

The Minister may have a sense of déjà vu. In 2016, he was in a similar slot, responding to a debate on this matter initiated by my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey). However, a lot has changed since then. We have now seen the final bill. On 13 February, just over a month ago, the cost to the taxpayer was revealed to be £53.3 million. A further £5.5 million of winding-up costs was to be paid by the Department for Transport, via Transport for London. In 2018, the legal opinion of Jason Coppel QC, an expert in public and procurement law, referred to a “probable” violation of obligations by trustees, including Joanna Lumley and Paul Morrell, the former chief construction adviser to the Government. There is a sniff of “mates’ rates” here. The project should not have been given the green light by the Government despite all the warnings.

This is a sorry end to a supposedly pioneering project, and a far cry from the 2013 national infrastructure plan. At the time, Danny Alexander said that a £30 million fund to kick-start the project would be supplemented by private income. The Minister himself said that the bridge would be magnificent and that people would come from all over the world to see it. I think that it was supposed to be the second biggest tourist attraction in Europe. My parliamentary neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound), was also a big fan, and the computer-generated image excited many people.

Today’s debate is particularly urgent, because the Garden Bridge Trust—the charity responsible for the project—will wind itself up imminently. We now have an itemised bill, in which £21.4 million for building contractors is the biggest expense. Again, this was in 2016, when the funding was not in place and the planning permissions were not there; none of that had been sorted, yet this huge contract was signed off—£10 million to designers and architects, £400,000 on a gala fundraiser, £1.3 million on geotechnical marine surveys of the Thames, £161,000 for the website. So there are huge question marks around the robustness of the business case for this ill-fated bridge to nowhere, and there are questions about the Department for Transport’s own criteria set by the Treasury, which we need to make sure are followed through properly next time. A lot of questions about due process, openness, transparency and accountability have dogged the project since inception and those involved need to be held to account.

We know that the Transport Minister, the Chancellor and Chief Secretary at the time have all moved on, but the Mayor of London from then, the project’s chief midwife, is still active in politics. Until recently, he was Foreign Secretary, and just this week he had a tasteless outburst on the airwaves about money being blown on a historical child abuse inquiry, which has upset families. That seems rich given the cumulative price tag of all his pet projects—not just the unbuilt bridge, but the unused water cannon, the unfeasibly hot buses, the £20,000 on going to Afghanistan to avoid the Heathrow vote.

This episode also raises questions about the role and performance of the Charity Commission. There are question marks over Transport for London as well. It has experienced unprecedented cuts to operational funding over the last five years, with its budget reducing by £700 million a year. It has become one of the few transport authorities in the world that do not receive a direct Government grant for their operational running costs. I would like the Minister to address that.

This is a national scandal. It seems that the usual channels of civil servants and the traffic lights system, by which are warnings when things are going wrong, were bypassed here. It feels like this was a vanity project masquerading as a transport scheme. The fact that it was part of a national infrastructure plan makes it sound more like a regeneration scheme than anything to do with transport. The Hodge report suggests that the sequencing of all the decisions was in tune with electoral cycles rather than anything else. This waste of money on something only tangentially to do with traffic should be seen against the background of austerity, too.

There are implications for other big concerns and projects such as Carillion and HS2, which goes through my seat. There are question marks over the Thomas Heatherwick partnership, which is perceived as greatly favoured in a lot of these contracts nowadays. I am thinking of the Olympic stadium and the new Routemaster buses—the “cauldron on wheels” buses as they have been called. We need to look at the public sector’s use of poorly regulated charities to deliver capital projects, because there is real lack of accountability.

So since the last debate in 2016 there has been a huge volume of new evidence. I would like to know from the Minister whether we can have a fresh inquiry with fresh eyes now that the final bill has come in. There seems to be a merry-go-round involving Arup and others, with people who are trustees also regulating the companies involved and the same companies being awarded contracts.

This floral tribute and unbuilt bridge was meant to pay for itself. Fantastic promises were made, but the local group Thames Central Open Spaces, which I have met, was ringing alarm bells from back in 2014, and it had some success in getting the land listed as an asset of community value.

I ask the Transport Minister why the business case was never really made. Some £60 million of public money was agreed. This is something that I will not lay at the door of his boss whose name rhymes with “failing”, because fortunately that particular Secretary of State did have the foresight to pull the plug on some of this money, but there is a feeling that favoured providers were being fattened up. There seems to be a circular route whereby if we want to, we can set up a charitable arm’s length trust with its opaque governance structures and give all the jobs to our mates and so forth. The regulation is very shady; there is no clear accountability structure here. TfL says it is the Government, and the National Audit Office can only narrowly investigate bits of the Department for Transport and cannot investigate TfL. The GLA has no teeth to investigate TfL. The Public Accounts Committee is now saying that it has done its bit and that this is one for the London Assembly. We are all being led a merry dance, or perhaps led up the garden path. This is a masterclass in buck-passing.

We should be aware that other big projects are going to be funded through this same structure, including the Crystal Palace park and, I think, the national holocaust memorial. Those are great, laudable projects, but we need to ensure that accountability procedures are in place. I mentioned HS2. The garden bridge did not even have the advantage of shaving time off the journey to Birmingham. People saw it as having no direction or purpose.

Was this a complex web of corruption, lies, deception and cover-up, or was it a comedy of errors involving negligence mixed with a touch of arrogance and hubris stemming from a fragmentation of confused responsibilities? Whether this was a cock-up or a conspiracy, lessons must be learned in relation to oversight, because a £40 million-plus mistake is a big mistake to make. This should not be taken lightly. Will Hurst from the Architects’ Journal has said that

“heads should roll over the Garden Bridge but the odds are they won’t”.

There are wider questions about TfL. As I have said, its resource grant has been massively cut. There are also issues about the mishandling of Crossrail, which is now running over budget and over time. It will come through my seat, and my constituents want to know whether it is ever going to happen.

Throughout the garden bridge project, there were constant shortfalls between stated income and real balances. The unforgivable thing was the £24.1 million construction project that was committed to before ownership of the land, funds or permissions were in place. This all happened the wrong way round. Cart before horse; the sequencing was all completely wrong.

I have a couple of questions for the Minister. The National Audit Office report made a series of recommendations about the Department for Transport’s decision-making processes. Have any consequences flowed from that report? Why were DFT officials ignored when they said that there was too much funding for pre-construction activities? We need to see a chain of command between DFT and TfL, because it is not clear what was going on in terms of oversight responsibilities.

We live in an age of freedom of information, social media, public inquiries, televised hearings and investigative journalism, so these kinds of rigged procurement processes involving dodgy competitive tendering and taking things off the books will be noticed now. It is not good enough to have cabals, cliques and the old pals act. I am grateful to Tom Copley, Will Hurst, Peter Walker, Thames Central Open Spaces and Dan Anderson for helping me to illuminate this murky garden bridge fiasco. I have learned a new term this week—“spaffed up the wall”. I learned it from our former Foreign Secretary. Politicians are usually seen as being in it for themselves, incompetent or out of touch, but here it looks as though all three were applicable. I look forward to the Minister’s response, and I hope that we can ensure that these things never happen again.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Andrew Jones)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) on securing this debate. I have to say that I think she has seen a lavish amount of conspiracy in this issue. She made comparisons with Suez and various other things which were, frankly, a little overblown. I have written down terms such as “rigged processes” and “mates’ rates”. Those are quite strong accusations, and I will comment more on them later, but I think it is important that we do not lose perspective.

I recognise, as did the Secretary of State and my ministerial colleagues at the Department for Transport, that the garden bridge is a subject that has always divided public opinion. I also remember that debate of about three years ago where strongly held views were expressed, both for and against, by people sitting next to each other on the Opposition Benches. This is a disagreement between neighbours as much as anything else. I do not think we can regard it as a political matter. It was a project that could have added a significant extra dimension to our already magnificent capital city.

Let me start at the beginning by explaining why the Government decided to support this iconic and novel project. The previous Mayor of London was approached, some years ago, with an idea for a completely new type of bridge: a footbridge, but one that was also a park; a place where people could cross the river as part of their journey or stop and enjoy their surroundings and the magnificent river views that this city presents. The then Mayor and Ministers considered that it could be an innovative and iconic project, but they did not believe that it should be wholly taxpayer funded. However, they did agree to help with some funding to kickstart the project and stimulate private sector funding. The Chancellor therefore announced in the 2013 autumn statement that the Government would provide £30 million towards the project as long as the Mayor contributed a similar amount and as long as a satisfactory business case showed that it would deliver value for money for the taxpayer.

The Garden Bridge Trust and Transport for London produced a business case in early 2014, and the Department for Transport analysed it carefully in the same way that it does for any other transport project. While the project was highly unusual and had a wide range of potential cost-benefit ratios, our analysis showed that there was a reasonable chance that it would offer value for money for the taxpayer. The hon. Lady asked whether the process was followed, and it was, but it was tough to cost and quantify the potential benefits.

In the light of the analysis, the Department agreed to release the £30 million pledged by the Chancellor but, importantly, we attached a number of conditions to it, including a cap of around £8 million on the amount of Government money that could be spent on pre-construction activity. That condition was designed to limit taxpayer exposure in the event that the project did not proceed. We also included a requirement for TfL to draw up a detailed funding agreement with the trust to govern how the money would be used. Over time, and in response to requests from the trust, the cap on the Government’s exposure was increased in stages to £13.5 million as circumstances changed and it became clear that more money was needed to get the project to the point at which construction could start.

[Dr Huq]

Does the Minister think that the £3 million a year running costs being financed by events on the bridge was a good model? Does he agree that that would have been doing things the wrong way around?

[Andrew Jones]

This was a very individual project, and it could have been a captivating addition to London’s already captivating centre. I could immediately see why organisers would consider such a venue as location for events, so I could see how those income streams could be developed. However, it is a challenge to decide how to use the initiative and ideas that come from campaigners, architects and designers and the good will of the charitable sector, with Government support in a public-private partnership, to deliver significant public good.

I am sorry that the project has not materialised, but we cannot say that an approach that brings people together should never again be used, because I can foresee circumstances in which it could, and possibly should, happen again. The hon. Lady mentioned certain projects, and although I am not particularly familiar with the detail of the Crystal Palace proposal, I am absolutely certain that initiatives that come from the creativity of community involvement, by bringing people together and using the Government as a means of leverage, either financial other through ministerial engagement, are part of what the future can look like. We should not rule that out, but if public money is involved, we should make sure that we learn the lessons, to which I shall come later in my speech.

In 2016, the Garden Bridge Trust asked the Government to underwrite the project’s potential cancellation costs. Let me be clear: that was not a request for additional funding; instead, it was a request to be able to use some of the £30 million that we had already committed, to pay the project’s cancellation costs, should that be necessary. The trust said that without such an underwriting guarantee, the project could not continue. After careful consideration, in late May 2016, the Department agreed to provide a time-limited underwriting guarantee but, again, with various conditions attached, including a requirement for the trust to provide more regular reports to the Department on the status of the project and the steps the trust was taking to address risks.

Over the summer of that year, as a result of further delays to the construction timetable, the trust asked whether the underwriting guarantee could be extended beyond the end of September 2016. Again, after consideration, the Department agreed that it could, but in such a way that the risks would be more fairly shared between the Government and the bridge’s private sector backers. To be precise, the Government agreed to underwrite up to £9 million-worth of cancellation costs, and it was intended that the private sector would be required to underwrite any additional cancellation costs above that amount.

The Government continued their support for the project and wished it well, but they always made it clear to the trust that it should not just be public money at risk should the project fail. Unfortunately, the garden bridge trustees took the difficult decision in August 2017 that, without the necessary guarantees from the current Mayor of London, the project could not continue and the formal decision was taken to close the project. Since then, the trustees have been negotiating with their creditors to close down the trust in an orderly fashion.

Transport for London has been working with the trust to satisfy the Department and itself that every £1 of public money spent on cancellation costs is absolutely necessary to support the project’s claims. I understand there are many concerns about the project, and I will talk about some of them. The Garden Bridge Trust was set up in 2014 to manage the construction of the bridge, and the experienced group of trustees was wholly responsible for the development and fundraising. The Department for Transport and Transport for London spoke to the trust on a regular basis about progress and concerns.

I understand that the hon. Lady and other hon. Members have expressed concerns about how the trust was being run, how public money was being spent and how much transparency there was on the project, but it would be wrong to say that nobody has scrutinised the project. There have been several reports and investigations into the project. The London Assembly has reviewed the procurement process. The National Audit Office has reviewed the project and reported on the Department’s grant control measures in 2016. The Charity Commission has looked at how the trust was run as a charity and reported in 2017.

[Dr Huq]

The Minister is detailing all the different reports, but we need one now that we have the final winding-up costs and the final bill. Those reports are historical. This looks like another white elephant, and I did not mention the cable car, which is another one. This is a whitewash of a white elephant.

[Andrew Jones]

I have mentioned investigations by the London Assembly, the National Audit Office and the Charity Commission, which clearly were not whitewashes. These are independent bodies. The hon. Lady has mentioned mates’ rates and closed groups, but the head of the Garden Bridge Trust was a former Labour Minister, now Labour peer, who was dealing with a Conservative Mayor of London. I do not view this as some closed, chummy, “old school tie” thing, which is what the hon. Lady is suggesting. I do not think the facts are remotely like that.

There has never been any secret about the investigations, and the fact that they have taken place demonstrates the robust scrutiny that has applied to this project to ensure that it was run properly and that we got the best value for taxpayers’ money. It is because of those inquiries that I do not think it necessary to have a new inquiry.

The Department for Transport continues to scrutinise the use of public money in spending decisions robustly. Clear safeguards were included in the garden bridge project on how and when the money could be spent to limit expenditure should the project fail. The hon. Lady asks about lessons learned, which are important for anyone who has responsibility for public finances. It is quite a difficult question, because this is such an individual project, but there is the principle of control of money. The Department has, for example, changed the way it handles rail development projects by introducing the rail network enhancements pipeline—the RNEP process—to ensure that projects cannot proceed to the next level of development until it is clear what the funding implications are. There is always, then, this iterative process of review and of lessons being learned from experience and new developments. Of course we learn lessons.

There are also processes for sharing good practice. There is a transport efficiency project whereby different parts of the Department share best practice to see whether lessons can be learned in the development of rail that could be applied to road, and vice versa. I would caution the hon. Lady, therefore, about saying that no lessons have been learned. Learning lessons is an existing part of standard DFT procedure and—I would hope—of every other Department and public body.

As the hon. Lady may be aware, the sum spent on cancellation liabilities will be significantly less than the £9 million made available, meaning that more of the funding originally allocated can be returned to the Department to be spent on other transport projects.

In conclusion, I understand the concerns raised by the hon. Lady and others who have spoken today and previously and I recognise it is unfortunate that public money has been spent without the project coming to fruition, but despite people’s best efforts projects sometimes do not achieve their potential. The decision to support the project was taken with the view that it would be successful. It did not fail to capture the public imagination. It might have polarised it, but some clearly saw how it could enhance an already magnificent cityscape.

My Department will continue to scrutinise funding decisions and make sure we continue to deliver value for taxpayers. That is a regular part of all that we do. It has not been compromised by this project and will remain a part of all our future project management.

Question put and agreed to.

EU Exit Preparations: Ferry Contracts

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Tuesday 5th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Alan Brown]

Well, let’s see. Perhaps I would ensure that no deal was off the table, so that there would be no hint of that cliff edge with no medicines coming through. That is what I would do to start with. We should also consider extending article 50, to try to give this incompetent Government time to make some real preparations, although I have no faith in the possibility that any more time would actually work for them.

I have mentioned transparency and accountability. Let me record my thanks to the journalist who first broke the story about Seaborne Freight in the new year and to the Public Accounts Committee and the National Audit Office for the work that they have done so far in assessing the diligence. Members on both sides of the House have raised some important questions: for instance, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) first raised the matter of the likely illegal tendering process.

We have still to get to the bottom of the overall process. It started in secrecy; it has been shrouded in secrecy ever since; and the Transport Secretary’s non-answers and evasions have not helped us to secure any further clarity. His Department has form when it comes to procurement issues. I remember, years ago, the collapse of the west coast main line franchise, which came about following another court action challenge. That resulted in Virgin receiving a direct award to extend its services, which clearly does not provide the best value for money for the taxpayer.

If the Transport Secretary believes so much in competition and privatisation, we have to ask why so many rail franchises have received direct awards, because that is the complete opposite of competitive tendering. The Southern rail franchise model has clearly failed, and much of that failure has been due to the inaction of the Transport Secretary, and the fact that somebody just wanted to have a fight with the unions rather than trying to improve markets and get services up and running.

That is the background to some of the systemic procurement failings in the Department for Transport, and it brings us neatly to where we are now. When the information about the award of the Seaborne Freight contract first surfaced, it was almost like a sick joke. This was an emergency contract for a company to provide emergency services. The hon. Member for Bolton West (Chris Green) referred to vital services to keep medicines running. The Government, and the Transport Secretary, chose to pick up a ferry company that had no boats, had negative equity of £374,000, and had no history of running ferry or freight services. Both Brian Raincock, one of the directors, and Ben Sharp, the chief executive, had had companies liquidated when they owed money to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. Raincock’s debt was £600,000. I remind the House that HMRC is, effectively, all of us taxpayers.

What, then, constituted the due diligence, and what red flags were identified at that time? We have still to hear the answers to those questions. It turned out—I touched on this earlier—that the due diligence heralded by the Transport Secretary was actually very limited. It was very high-level, that meant that it was not due diligence. The companies which carried it out confirmed that they could not make a proper assessment of the merits of Seaborne being given a supposedly vital contract.

We need to ask some questions, and the Transport Secretary needs to start answering. How on earth did Seaborne get hand-picked for direct negotiation, given the circumstances? Saying that it accounted for only 10% of the vital services is no answer. Saying that that the Government were supporting a vital British start-up company is certainly not an answer. Why should we hand-pick start-up companies for vital emergency services? That makes no sense whatsoever. It was so wrong that it led to a £33 million settlement for Eurotunnel. The Transport Secretary is shaking his head. Hopefully he is managing to multi-task and listen to these points, and will respond to them at the Dispatch Box.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the £33 million for something that never materialised—the phantom ferry contract—is not dissimilar to the £30 million that the Secretary of State’s predecessor committed to the garden bridge? There is nothing to show for that either. It was not even directly a transport project. The hon. Gentleman mentioned rail upgrades. Vital rail upgrades elsewhere in the country were cancelled when the money was committed to this project. It is taxpayer money, and Members should not laugh at this appalling waste.

[Alan Brown]

I thank the hon. Lady for highlighting yet another miserable failure, with more money being thrown down the drain. It is interesting that Eurotunnel was paid £33 million for vital services, given that that seems in one way or another to replace the contract of Seaborne Freight, which was given only £14 million. So we really do have to ask what extra we are getting for the £33 million, or is this all the compensation that Eurotunnel walks away with and the taxpayer has no chance of recouping? Again, the Transport Secretary really needs to explain this.

The Government have argued that direct negotiation was possible under regulation 32 of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015, which relates to emergency situations brought about by unforeseeable events. So, after more than two years of no-deal planning, we suddenly had an unforeseen event—an unforeseen event, however, that allowed such protracted negotiations and £800,000-worth of due diligence. I would like the Transport Secretary to explain how long those negotiations were ongoing in this supposedly emergency situation, because £800,000 of consultants’ money amounts to a fair bit of time in negotiation, so he needs to explain when the actual emergency situation kicked in.

The argument from the Dispatch Box was that Seaborne Freight would only receive the money if it delivered the service, but that misses the point, because if it did not deliver the service, the emergency service it was contracted for would not happen, and that would leave the Government in a right mess in terms of no-deal preparations. The Transport Secretary has also argued that Seaborne has not cost the taxpayer any money. Hopefully he will re-explain these figures, because I would like to know how £800,000-worth of due diligence, at least some of which was on Seaborne Freight, has not cost any money. How did going to court and defending the Government’s position not cost any money? How did an out-of-court settlement with Eurotunnel at £33 million not cost any money that was related to Seaborne, because I am pretty sure a key plank of Eurotunnel’s objections was the fact that the Transport Secretary gave an important contract to a company with no ships? Meanwhile Eurotunnel is a company that obviously provides successful cross-border services. It is no wonder it was at court.

I would also like to ask the Transport Secretary whether there are any more objections outstanding: any more risks of court action. In response to a written parliamentary question I was told that a limited number of representations were received. In my book, a limited number is more than one. We have already had one court case to date; are any more court cases pending?

Airports National Policy Statement

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Thursday 7th June 2018 Westminster Hall

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure, as always, to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) on her sterling work on the report. I have a slight sense of déjà vu, because in this slot a couple of weeks ago we debated the Transport Committee’s excellent report on community transport. It felt then like the Government were not listening. The same Minister responded to that debate, and he seemed to have closed his ears. I hope that we do better today.

My opposition to the expansion of Heathrow is of long standing—it predates my election to this place and comes from 46 years of living under the flightpath. In 2016, I asked David Cameron whether his, “No ifs, no buts,” no third runway statement applied and when we would get a decision. We all know what happened to him—I think the week after, he was a goner.

The report is thorough, deliberative and thoughtful, and people have called it forensic, but the Government are not behaving in that way on this issue. They seem to have decided, with indecent haste, to rush to expand without properly answering the points in the report, let alone Labour’s four tests. The decision on Tuesday, which overtook the report, and the stuff that we have heard since was a long time coming, but the wrong decision has been made and the way it was reached seems highly questionable.

The Committee calls for assurances on noise, air quality and compensation. A lot of people have outlined the diminishing economic benefits of expansion. The hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) is no longer in his place—I do not think he is resigning this time, but who knows—but the voices of Government Members have been some of the most powerful in the debate. That shows that this is a question not of left and right but of right and wrong. Even within our parties, on the left and the right, there are subdivisions.

The stuff we heard on the Floor of the House on Tuesday was very flimsy. There seemed to be an attitude that, “It’ll be all right on the night,” and that everything would be paid for by the private sector. Nobody believes those fantastical promises. We had an urgent question this morning from the right hon. Member for Putney (Justine Greening) about the financial basis of the decision. In its report, the Select Committee states that it would approve the NPS only if there was

“evidence to demonstrate that the…scheme is both affordable and deliverable”

before any parliamentary vote, yet we are told that we will be rushed into that vote very soon.

Many of my constituents are deeply concerned. The two things that trouble them most are the environmental and social impacts, and increased air traffic. We already have illegal air pollution levels around Heathrow airport—not just from airborne traffic but from idling taxis, which cause NO2 emissions at surface level. People are born with deformed lungs in our city. How will an extra runway make that any better?

There are other ways to do this. Even if we accept the need for airport capacity in the south-east to be expanded, there are other ways to do that. Could we not decouple the number of flights permitted from decisions on a runway? There are other ways of doing this. We could build up Gatwick and have better rail connectivity between Gatwick and Heathrow.

Frankly, Heathrow is in the wrong place for expansion. If we were building an airport from scratch, we would not put it in what is already one of the most built-up urban areas. Schiphol and many other airports are in the middle of fields. Heathrow is in the wrong place, and this is the wrong time for expansion. As was pointed out, we should be looking at the point-to-point model, not the hub model. The Select Committee states that it accepts the national policy statement

“on the premise that any expansion is sustainable, consistent with legal obligations and that suitable mitigations will be in place to offset impacts on local communities affected by noise, health and social impacts.”

That is a pretty big caveat. What we have been told by the Government and Heathrow does not offer my constituents confidence that any of that has been done.

Many voters, in good faith, believed the Conservatives when they said they were their saviours from the third runway that our party promised under the Brown Government, long before my time in this place. I think voters will start wondering, “Does this mean that they’re casting it all off? Were these some sort of short-lived green halcyon days, when it was time to hug a husky?” We have since seen the Conservatives embrace nuclear power at Hinkley Point, fracking, and now this. I think people will wonder. David Cameron—remember him?—said something about cutting the green stuff. Well, he actually used a word that I do not think is parliamentary, Mr Hanson. Perhaps you can guess what it is—it rhymes with “nap” and begins with the letters c and r. I will not say any more than that, but people will wonder.

The Foreign Secretary promised to lie down in front of the bulldozers. I cannot see that happening, but even if they do not do that, the Government surely should stand up for our constituents’ health. Air pollution is already appallingly high in our city, and the NPS fails to show how a third runway and all the emissions it will bring will improve that. As it is, 9,000 Londoners a year die prematurely from our toxic air. How is an extra runway going to help that? The current Mayor of London is acting on the issue. He has brought forward things such as the ultra-low emission zone, which the previous Mayor dragged his feet on a bit. All that will be undone, so will the Minister tell us exactly how our climate change obligations will be satisfied following this decision?

I restate that it seems the decision has been made with indecent haste. If it has been 20 years or whatever in the making, we cannot just rush into it. It is important that we get it right. Other Members mentioned the underhand way that Heathrow airport can operate. I found that from its surrogate, Back Heathrow, a mysterious so-called grassroots operation that somehow sent hundreds of postcards. The way it briefed against my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) and me was highly unprofessional. It is no wonder that Heathrow’s promises are not worth the paper they are written on, given that it operates through such shady surrogate operations.

The proposal is beset by problems. The level of opposition is demonstrated not just by Government Members but by the fact that the Mayor of London, who used to be a Transport Minister and I think was one of the original proponents of a third runway, has completely changed his mind. The Mayor’s office has done a lot of modelling, which cannot just be ignored. Willie Walsh, the CEO of International Airlines Group, said that it is unlikely that all the promises made by Heathrow can ever be delivered. It almost feels like we are in an early series of “Mad Men”, when the characters did a campaign for cigarettes—they knew they were bad for people, but they sold them anyway and said they were great. Look, I use Heathrow and understand its strategic importance to the west London economy and to the whole nation, but enough is enough. Put the extra capacity elsewhere and build the links to that.

[Sir Roger Gale]

I have listened carefully to the hon. Lady and indeed to everyone else. It strikes me that, other than my modest contribution in terms of bridging a gap, not a single person has come up with any solution to the passenger and—currently much more important—freight needs of the United Kingdom. We need an answer. Just saying “we don’t want this” is no answer.

[Dr Huq]

One of the Labour party’s promises is about delivering benefits to the whole nation, which is what the hon. Gentleman was talking about, but this proposal, as my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth and the right hon. Member for Putney said, will suck the life out of regional airports. They will have fewer flights. It is a bad idea that is the worst of all worlds.

There are significant environmental, financial, political and legal considerations. We see divisions in the Cabinet. There will be a legal challenge, and the Government risk losing that unless all the conditions are met. It is riddled with difficulties. It is vital that before we make a decision all required mitigations are in place, but they are not at the moment. There are other impacts—one could go on and on—including community impacts; resource and waste management; air quality; surface access; connectivity; and costs and landing charges. Actually, it will be more expensive to fly from what is already a very expensive airport. I did not really get into Labour’s four tests, but we do not need to go into those in great detail. I revert to an old slogan of the London Borough of Ealing. What we want is a better Heathrow, not a bigger Heathrow.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Alan Brown]

We all have to thank Hansard for making us seem more coherent.

The hon. Member for Keighley (John Grogan) gave us a Yorkshire perspective. To cheer him up, one of my grandparents was from Yorkshire, so I am one quarter Yorkshire—maybe I am an honorary Yorkshireman. He suggested that there should be a three-line Labour Whip against this. It will be interesting to see what the shadow Minister says about that recommendation; maybe he can give us some guidance in his summing-up speech. The hon. Member for Keighley was another one giving advice to the other SNP MPs and me on what is in Scotland’s interests. I take his point about the possible risk to direct, point-to-point, long-haul connections and some of the threats predicted for regional airports. I also have concerns and would want some protection. I want to hear what the Minister says about that.

The final Back-Bench speech was from the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq), who again highlighted the environmental and social impacts and how traffic can affect air quality. I was trying to follow her logic. It seems that she wants the Tories to U-turn on their decision not to overturn the previous Labour decision. That seems to highlight how long this has been kicking around, how much prevarication there has been and, if nothing else, why we need to get to a decision.

[Dr Huq]

Following the logic that people can change their minds, would the hon. Gentleman not agree that this Government should also now change their mind on Brexit—something else that sounded good but is now unravelling?

Airports National Policy Statement

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Tuesday 5th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I absolutely agree with my right hon. and learned Friend. He will be aware that we have had a number of toings and froings over the months about whether it will be necessary to build a depot at Langley; that has now been resolved and that depot is not now happening, which will simplify the process of delivering western rail access, and I hope will ease many of the pressures. One of the factors that will have an impact in my right hon. and learned Friend’s constituency and the large number of people who travel to work at Heathrow is that western rail access will not only deliver better connectivity to the west country but will make it easier for staff to get the train to work.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

It may be long overdue but this is the wrong decision, and it flies in the face of what the current Prime Minister has previously said, not to mention the last one with his “No ifs, no buts,” no third runway comment. So does this U-turn, like the abandoning of the feed-in tariff and like the embrace of Hinkley Point, show that this Government’s green dalliance and “hug a husky” phase is now well and truly over?

[Chris Grayling]

I gently say to the hon. Lady that I appreciate that this is a difficult decision for communities immediately around Heathrow and the Members who represent them. We cannot take a decision like this one without having an impact, and we will do everything we can to work with the airport to make sure that impact is minimised. The hon. Lady talks about previous commitments, and I simply remind her that we fought a general election last year on a manifesto commitment to pursue this process, and that is what we are doing.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Thursday 24th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jesse Norman]

As the hon. Lady will know, many of those ancient woodlands were planted only in the past couple of decades, so I am not sure that she has quite made her point.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

7. What plans he has for the operation of trains in the Thames valley after the end of the Great Western rail franchise.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Joseph Johnson)]

The current Great Western franchise ends on 31 March 2020. In November 2017, the Department started its consultation on the future of services. Department for Transport officials are currently evaluating options for the specification of the franchise from April 2020, and throughout the 2020s, with the aim of issuing the specification later this year.

[Dr Huq]

It is a tale of two railways in Ealing and Acton. This week I have heard praise for not-for-profit TfL rail services, whose users rate its reliability, but also complaints about GWR services, which are based on profitability, that have been cancelled without recompense. Will the Minister at the first opportunity take the Thames Valley franchise back into public ownership and scrap the crackpot idea to split it further? That would do us all a favour—the Exchequer and not just shareholders—before he is forced to do so when it flops.

[Joseph Johnson]

I fear that the hon. Lady is under a misapprehension as to the nature of the TfL contractual arrangements on that line, but she will be pleased to know that we are transferring services to TfL, including those from Paddington to Hayes and Harlington, and Heathrow Connect.

Community Transport

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Thursday 10th May 2018 Westminster Hall

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) on her report, her speech and her excellent stewardship of the Transport Committee.

Community transport is not the sexiest subject on the political agenda. It was never in “The West Wing”. When people think about transport, they think of things such as Crossrail, HS2 and the third runway—all of which are in my constituency, I have to say. However, as many hon. Members have pointed out, community transport gives people a lifeline.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound) described Ealing community transport at length, and he has nicked most of my speech. He and I were both at the Christmas party of Age Link, which provides a similar service: volunteer drivers in their own cars, not minibuses, take isolated and lonely elderly people to appointments. In Ealing, we also have Dial-a-Ride—Transport for London is the main provider—which is another door-to-door service, with red buses.

The distinctive green and yellow ECT buses, which my hon. Friend described, are testament to how things work in Ealing and elsewhere in the country, and they illustrate why changing these regulations is so dangerous. I spent a recent Friday with ECT, and we picked up a lady called Suzie. Hon. Members have talked about their rural seats, but even in suburban Acton we picked up someone who had had a fall and has been unable to drive since then, and we took her to Morrisons. She said that the service is a godsend. It has been going for nearly 40 years and serves 298 groups—not just the elderly and disabled, but various scout groups, youth groups and every complexion of religious group from the Jehovah’s Witnesses to various mosques. ECT provides services that are not available in the commercial transport sector, and not just to the elderly—a group we seem to have been addressing today. In my list of groups I have written the YMCA, which has “young” in it. ECT serves young groups, old groups, Dementia Concern, Age Concern—those sorts of people.

These services save our local authorities a huge amount of money in avoided health and social care costs, which is the biggest bill for all local authorities at the moment. In the long run, they save us money. In January, the Government introduced a Minister for loneliness. Community transport providers tap into the loneliness agenda. There are also quantifiable figures: Deloitte estimates that the loneliness bill is £1.3 billion to £2.9 billion for the whole country. It is £10 million for Ealing alone, but with community transport it comes down to £4 million a year.

We have heard about the strangulating definition of European regulations. My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South described how the 1985 light-touch regulation turned into the scary notifications of 31 July and 9 November, so I will not go into all that—

[Philip Davies (in the Chair)]

Order.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Davies.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) and I congratulate her on securing this important debate and on her excellent speech outlining the issue. Her knowledge and expertise on all transport matters is of great benefit to the House, and I commend her work as Chair of the Transport Committee in carrying out this important and thorough inquiry. I also thank hon. Members from across the House for their contributions.

We have heard that community transport is a very broad term for the vital local transport services that provide a lifeline to people in our communities who, sadly, might otherwise be isolated. From lifts by volunteer car drivers to more organised schemes such as dial-a-ride or dial-a-bus, minibus travel for groups of people who struggle to get out on their own and community bus services where there are no existing commercial routes, such as in remote rural areas, not-for-profit services are vital to local communities.

[Dr Huq]

My hon. Friend mentioned that community transport is a lifeline for the users, but does he agree that it is also a lifeline for the volunteer drivers? Patrick O’Keefe, a constituent who was very high up at Heathrow, and Paul Hurley, who is ex-BBC, love it because they have a post-retirement second lease of life.

[Matt Rodda]

My hon. Friend makes a very valid point.

My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South and other Members are right to describe the services as a lifeline, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) just did. It is heartening to see so many Members here showing support for them. Throughout the debate, we have heard many examples of the impact that these vital services have in constituencies up and down the country. The value of these services is not disputed and is not a topic for this debate.

The debate came about as a result of the failure of the Department for Transport to ensure that UK legislation and guidance kept pace with community transport practice and European regulations. Sadly, the Department did not respond appropriately or quickly enough to address issues that were raised directly with them over a number of years. When officials did respond, they mismanaged the situation, causing confusion and panic in the community transport sector. We have heard that the Department’s ill-judged letter last July had an immediate and damaging knock-on effect. It led to local authorities halting commissioning and in some cases even withdrawing contracts from community transport operators. The delay of more than three months in the Department providing clarification further exacerbated the problem and highlighted the Department’s lack of understanding of the impact of its proposals on the community transport sector.

My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South informed us earlier that the Transport Committee’s subsequent inquiry was launched in response to the concerns that not-for-profit community minibus services for vulnerable or isolated people were under threat, and in response to Members being contacted by constituents and community transport providers. The inquiry received more than 300 submissions, which demonstrates the considerable strength of feeling among organisations that provide community transport and people using those vital services.

The inquiry found that the Government’s position—that the majority of community transport operators would not be affected by any clarification of the rules—was inaccurate. The Department’s view appears not to differentiate between true commercial services and those vital community services that fill gaps where the market is unable to deliver transport. By accepting a premise that any transaction in any form makes something commercial, the proposed changes will prevent many more community organisations from operating than the Department intended, affecting not just those that compete for contracts. It is important to remember that not all services where a payment is made are truly commercial.

If the proposed guidance stands, the total estimated impact on community organisations will be about £399 million. That will mean that many of the not-for-profit organisations will no longer be able to afford to run their services, as we have heard from many Members. That is a fundamental and worrying shift away from the established policy that not-for-profit organisations are able to play an important role, which has been supported by legislation and encouraged by both Labour and Conservative Governments for nearly 30 years. This long-established arrangement has been successful and has ensured that people in our communities can still get about when public transport cannot support them. That is why, in its inquiry report, the Transport Committee urged the Government to engage with the sector, and called for Ministers to address the Department’s lack of understanding of the community transport sector and to carry out a full impact assessment of the proposals.

A further key recommendation was that the Government use the consultation to consider reforms to achieve compatibility with EU regulations. That would maintain the key objective of continuing to provide high quality, safe and secure community transport services. It is disheartening to hear from my hon. Friend that the Government have not listened and, sadly, not engaged with these very legitimate concerns. With the consultation now closed, I hope the Minister will outline the steps he will take to ensure the views and concerns expressed are taken into account, and will reassure Members that the consultation was not merely an exercise to rubber-stamp the Department’s proposals.

The community transport sector has acted in good faith, in accordance with official guidance from both local and central Government over many years. By its own admission, the DFT has not kept pace with developments in community transport. Furthermore, the Department has taken action only when under immediate legal threat. Will the Minister now outline what steps he is taking to ensure that the Department has the expertise and understanding required to oversee the reforms, whilst ensuring the protection of these vital services? The role of the DFT is to support transport networks and to keep people moving.

This sorry episode suggests a wider failure to take a strategic view of local transport policy, which I hope the Minister will now address. I urge him to take a fresh look at community transport services, to improve services and make them more efficient. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s comments and to him reassuring the Committee on this matter.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Thursday 1st March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I will certainly do that, and I also recommit to the improvements needed in Ely, which are essential over the next control period to unlocking those capacity improvements that are needed for the growth and development of those parts of Cambridgeshire.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

T2. Since 1979 the distinctive yellow and green minibuses of Ealing Community Transport have provided a vital lifeline for the disabled and elderly of the borough, but changed Government guidance now threatens the existence of that award-winning social enterprise. A delegation of volunteer drivers came to see me nearly in tears. They are mostly pensioners and they do not have the time, resources or inclination to retrain for the passenger carrying vehicle licence that is now demanded. Will the Minister think again?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Jesse Norman)]

As the hon. Lady is aware, the matter is currently out to consultation, although it does not cover the certificate of professional competence, which will be handled separately. As I have indicated, there are many workarounds for this issue, and there is no reason for any community transport company to be adversely worried. There is a misalignment between EU law and UK law, and there may be some players who, unfortunately, are operating in a commercial way. That is how the matter rests, and we will do everything we can to protect community transport operators that are doing a good job.