Doncaster Sheffield Airport

Debate between Alexander Stafford and Dan Jarvis

Monday 24th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Alexander Stafford]

The hon. Gentleman has brought my speech on a bit, because what I am asking for is vision. I am asking the South Yorkshire Mayor for a vision of South Yorkshire. I want to know where South Yorkshire will be in five, 10 or 20 years’ time, and what my children will experience when they grow up in South Yorkshire. I do not want them to have bus franchising here or an airport there. I want to hear,

“South Yorkshire is going to be a better place, and this is how we’re getting there.”

We are talking about money and bus franchising, but ultimately we need that to feed into a wider vision. The whole point of the South Yorkshire Mayor, or any Mayor—I still have great reservations about the mayoralty, because I do not see that vision coming.

We speak about being unpartisan, and I will pay credit to what happened in Manchester, as well as in Tees Valley and the west midlands, where the Mayors have visions of what they want their regions to look like. I do not know what vision our Mayor has for our region. He probably wants to save the airport, and we have talked about bus franchising, but that is not a vision. In order for the airport to work, it needs to be part of a wider vision of prosperity. It is about how Sheffield is linked to Doncaster, and from Barnsley down to Rotherham, and how each part of it fits that vision. When the Mayor has set out the vision—I hope that it will be a good vision—he should use the levers of power available to him to make it a reality. He should say to the people of South Yorkshire, “I have my vision and this is where the airport fits into it. These are the levers—the powers and the £900 million given to me by the Government—that I will use to make that vision happen.” He may or may not say, “We need to save the airport,” but I want to see how that fits into the vision and how it all goes together.

We have already heard about the Civil Contingencies Act, the £20 million loan and lots of things. That is too piecemeal. The failure here is not necessarily the failure of the airport. The failure is of vision and of the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority. The success in the Tees Valley is because its Mayor has a vision, knows what he wants to do and is combining those. We do not have that in South Yorkshire. That is the ultimate failure.

[Dan Jarvis]

rose—

[Alexander Stafford]

I give way to the former Mayor.

[Dan Jarvis]

I am just checking that the hon. Member knows that there is a strategic economic plan. Included in that is a clear articulation of the importance of the airport. Has he read it?

[Alexander Stafford]

I am talking about the current Mayor. Of course, I have read the plan. We can all see where the airport fits into it, but that is not how it links together. It is too piecemeal. We may disagree on whether that plan is correct—I disagree with it—but it is too piecemeal. We need an overarching vision for how that works together with the industrial zones and the freeport.

I commend once again my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley on his cross-party way of working. He is a far nicer gentleman than me when it comes to working cross-party.

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[Dan Jarvis]

No, I will not; I am going to make some further points and I will give way to the hon. Member in a moment.

The truth of the matter is—I say this with all humility—that I was there; I was in the room, did the meetings, had the conversation and directed my officers to do the work. We worked very closely with Mayor Ros Jones, who has been a tireless supporter of Doncaster Sheffield airport for many years. The truth is that we completely acknowledged the huge value that DSA added to our regional economy and, as part of the work that we were doing, underpinned by a very detailed strategic economic plan that I am not sure that the hon. Member for Rother Valley (Alexander Stafford) has read, we produced a renewal action plan that provided the wider vision for the kind of economy—

[Alexander Stafford]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker.

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[Dan Jarvis]

The hon. Gentleman has made an important point. I entirely recognise, and am grateful for, the support that has come from Members outside South Yorkshire. I know that there is strong support from Members in West Yorkshire and North Yorkshire, and indeed from further afield—from north Nottinghamshire and the east midlands.

I do not think anyone in this place does not want the airport to remain open. That is why I am expressing so much frustration. Given the importance of the asset for the region and given the overwhelming cross-party support, I honestly cannot understand why the Secretary of State does not act. I am not having a go at the Minister, because I know that this is not within her brief—the Minister responsible sits in the other place— but I think that those who have been around for a while will understand that Ministers have a duty and a responsibility to sit down and meet their colleagues, which is why I am genuinely frustrated that there has not been such an opportunity.

Even at this late hour, I still think there would be merit in a meeting between Members on both sides of the House, from further afield than South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, North Yorkshire and the Humber. I think they should get round the table in the Department with the Minister and the Secretary of State so that our concerns can be voiced. That, I think, would be a constructive gathering, because in the end we all want the same thing. None of us wants to see the jobs go; none of us wants to see South Yorkshire’s economic potential undermined by the loss of this strategic asset. All of us want to see a regional airport strategy that works in the best interests of our regions.

I have never been one of those people who pit the north against the south. That is an entirely unhelpful metric. The Minister is looking around; I do not suggest for a moment that anyone present is doing that, but sometimes in the context of a conversation about levelling up, the north is pitted against the south and vice versa. I note that an airport in Kent which closed a number of years ago is about to reopen. The Government are supporting that proposal, and I think they are doing the right thing. I want people in Kent to have the best possible access to such facilities. However, I also want people in South Yorkshire, in Doncaster, in the north of England, to have access to this kind of infrastructure.

We will have a new Prime Minister very shortly. He is a Yorkshire MP. There is a big opportunity for him to do something significant at this late hour. The new Prime Minister knows his way around the Treasury, and he knows what the art of the possible is.

[Alexander Stafford]

The hon. Member says that there is an opportunity for the new Prime Minister to do something. Apart from having a meeting with Members who are in the Chamber tonight, what is the “something”, which keeps being alluded to, that Members want the Government to do? Is there a lever that the Government are not pulling which the hon. Member wants them to pull? On our side, we are saying that the South Yorkshire Mayor will want to make a compulsory purchase. What lever does the hon. Member believe the Government should be pulling?

[Dan Jarvis]

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North made very clear, the option involving the Civil Contingencies Act does provide a mechanism—[Interruption.] The Minister laughs. The legal advice that underpins the excellent work done by my right hon. Friends the Members for Doncaster North and for Doncaster Central (Dame Rosie Winterton) comes from one of the pre-eminent legal minds in our country, described by the hon. Member for Don Valley as a Labour peer. The truth of the matter is that this is someone who is highly respected within—[Interruption.] The Minister chunters from a sedentary position. [Interruption.] We are trying to be constructive here, and the proposal that was brought forward was absolutely worthy of merit. I very much hope that officials in the Minister’s Department have looked at it closely and taken legal advice. The letter from my right hon. Friends the Members for Doncaster North and for Doncaster Central (Dame Rosie Winterton), which many of us co-signed, invited the Minister in a sensible grown-up and constructive way to meet us to have a conversation about this, but we have never had that meeting. It is very frustrating that we have not had the opportunity to sit round the table and have a grown-up conversation—[Interruption.] The Minister is yawning and looking at her watch. People’s jobs are on the line and Government Ministers will not get round the table and meet us —[Interruption.]

Public Transport Authority for South Yorkshire

Debate between Alexander Stafford and Dan Jarvis

Wednesday 27th April 2022 Westminster Hall

[Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)]

It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Hosie. I should perhaps begin by declaring a very relevant interest as the Mayor of South Yorkshire—at least for another week or so.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Rother Valley (Alexander Stafford) on securing this important debate, but let us now inject some reality into it. In my four years as Mayor, I made transport a central priority. I knew just how important it was for productivity, access to opportunity and quality of life. By 2023, we will have invested £87 million in cycling and walking, with more to come. We are getting people fit, making it easier to get around and cutting car use. We are investing £100 million to put our trams on a solid footing and, I hope, to lay the foundation for expansion. We have put millions into bus concessions as well as into better infrastructure and services. We gave young people 80p fares so that they can afford to get about, get to work or to their studies, and we began the formal process of investigating bus franchising.

We have been working under huge pressure to protect and, where we can, improve our bus network across the whole region—in rural villages just as much as our urban centres. I am immensely proud of our record, but I am also deeply frustrated that we could not do more. More powers would have been invaluable. Of course, regional governments like South Yorkshire should play a role like Transport for London has in London, with a fully empowered public transport authority providing co-ordination and local control.

We already have a strategic role, but the truth is that powers are not enough without funding. For all the fine words, the reality is that from 2009 to 2020, Government spending on public transport in the UK declined by almost 40% from £3.9 billion to £2.4 billion. The Government spend almost three times per head more in London that in Yorkshire and the Humber. Meanwhile, amid all the talk of devolution, the Government’s default model is still forcing local government to endlessly compete for disparate, uncertain, centrally controlled and inadequate pots of money, sapping resources and hamstringing any attempts at strategic planning. South Yorkshire shows that especially well.

The national bus strategy expressed a grand aspiration, so we produced—let us be very clear about this—an ambitious, detailed £474-million bus service improvement plan, including free travel for under-18s, daily and weekly fare capping and a network of bus priority routes, but we were rejected along with 60% of other applicants. That was perhaps inevitable given that the available funding, which was originally promised to be in excess of £3 billion, ended up being just over £1 billion. Let me say that again: most areas will get nothing under the Government’s flagship bus improvement programme.

[Alexander Stafford]

On that programme, will the hon. Member acknowledge that there was just over £1 billion available from the Government for the whole country, yet South Yorkshire put in a bid for £400 million? That is almost half the money for the entire country. Surely that shows unrealistic expectations from South Yorkshire. Surely we should be more realistic.

[Dan Jarvis]

Oh dear, oh dear. I thought we would get through this in a reasonable way. The hon. Member for Rother Valley cannot have it both ways. On the one hand, he says we are not ambitious enough; on the other, he has just said that, actually, we are being too ambitious. The truth of the matter is—and the hon. Gentleman really needs to do his homework—that when we began the process of submitting the bus service improvement plan, the steer from national Government was that the money that would be available nationally from revenue funding would be well in excess of £3 billion. That is a statement of fact, and I am sure the Minister would not demur from it. The truth is that we have ended up with a pot of money that is just above £1 billion for the whole country. The hon. Gentleman has to do the maths and understand that, in conversation with the Government, we were given assurances that there would be in excess of £3 billion. That £3 billion was massively reduced to £1 billion. That is the reality of the situation we find ourselves in. I wish that were not the case—honestly, I do—but it is.

[Alexander Stafford]

I would be grateful if the hon. Member outlined why West Yorkshire got the money whereas South Yorkshire did not. To me, that shows that the money was available and was on the table. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, our bid was not good enough to make the cut, whereas West Yorkshire’s bid was. Clearly they got it right and we got it wrong.

[Dan Jarvis]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point in terms of getting detailed feedback from the Government. He may have received that; we have not. Let us be honest about it: it would be foolish and naive of anybody not to assert that this is a political decision taken by the Government. Where is the hon. Member for Rother Valley when it comes to lobbying the Government to ensure that we secure the resources we need to invest in our services? It is not the case that our bid lacked ambition. We will see what the Minister has to say, but I honestly do not believe that any Minister of this Government could look this House in the face and say that the bid lacked ambition, because it just did not.

[Alexander Stafford]

It still failed, though.

[Dan Jarvis]

So let us get detailed feedback from the Government as to why they did not want to put money into what was a detailed, ambitious proposal. A huge amount of time and investment was put into it; frankly, it is not the case that it was not ambitious. That is a ludicrous assessment of the work, and is actually pretty offensive to some very dedicated and professional officers who worked with local authorities and a range of stakeholders, including nationally and in the Department for Transport, with whom I think we have a good relationship. I have a lot of time for the Minister. He is good at his job, and I do not blame him or hold the Government entirely responsible for this decision. The answers to some of the questions that need to be responded to lie in No. 11 Downing Street. Why was it that the Treasury, having initially promised £3 billion, got us down to £1 billion?

The hon. Member for Rother Valley can seek to argue that our bid was not ambitious, but I will rebut that at every point, because it is not the case. A lot of good work went into it, based on the very good report that my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) produced a while ago. A lot of time, energy and investment went into drawing that plan together. The decision taken by the Government was entirely political, and did not in any way reflect the quality of the bid.

[Dan Jarvis]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. For the remainder of my term—which, admittedly, is a pretty short period of time—I am very happy to sit down with the hon. Member for Rother Valley and go through the detail of the bid that we submitted. The hon. Member has chosen today to make these points; he has not come to me previously. I routinely brief local Members of Parliament, and I have not seen the hon. Member at any of those meetings. It is only today that he takes the opportunity to raise these points.

[Alexander Stafford]

That is not true. I have been on numerous calls, and I have regular conversations with the South Yorkshire passenger transport authority and the hon. Gentleman’s offices and officers about a whole range of transport issues.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dan Jarvis]

I hope the hon. Gentleman has clocked that the South Yorkshire passenger transport executive is being subsumed into the mayoral combined authority, and what we are waiting for is Government time so that the order can go through this place to complete that process. That is something I decided was in our interests as a region, to allow for more effective and more accountable decision making.

I am conscious of time, so I will move on. However, given that we are rightly focusing on the importance of investment, I will just make the point that our plight was not helped—to say the least—by the fact that the £50 million levelling-up fund that the MCA put forward, which would have drawn down vital resource to invest in our bus network, was rejected. Again, that was a good, detailed, ambitious proposal that we put forward to the Government as part of—

[Alexander Stafford]

indicated dissent.

[Dan Jarvis]

The hon. Gentleman shakes his head. I look forward to hearing his detailed critique of why that £50 million bid that was put forward to Government was rejected. I am happy to give way, if he wants to offer a critique of what was wrong with that bid—was that not ambitious enough?

[Alexander Stafford]

I find the hon. Member’s argument quite astounding. On the one hand, the South Yorkshire mayoralty failed to get one pot of money; it has now failed to get another pot of money. Surely, this is just a failure of leadership. If it keeps getting things wrong, it is not a problem with the process but a problem with how the bid has been written. Surely, it undermines his argument completely—if it is not getting any of the bids right, it needs to review how they do bids.

[Dan Jarvis]

Honestly, the hon. Gentleman’s approach is somewhat blinkered. Even if it is not today in this place and in this debate, he needs to have conversations with Ministers. If this Government seek to be serious about the levelling-up agenda and unlocking the potential of South Yorkshire, they will have to do much better than just saying that our bids were not ambitious enough. That is not the case. I give the House absolute assurance that the bids put forward would be independently assessed as very high quality. We have been here before with freeports, where the Government’s own analysis showed that our bid was better than some of the successful bids. Let’s keep this real.

Our concerns about investment in public transport extend way beyond buses. The Minister is an expert on Northern Powerhouse Rail and HS2, which I know is the favourite subject of the hon. Member for Rother Valley, so I will not get into all that detail. I have a lot of time for the Minister, so it would be remiss of me not to say—I am afraid this undermines the hon. Gentleman’s argument—that we have been successful in some areas. The same team of people who put forward the bid for the city region sustainable transport settlement, who worked with the same local authorities and closely with the Minister’s Department, successfully secured £570 million. Why was that bid successful and others were not? It is not clear to me. To be fair to the Minister, the same team of people put forward a successful bid for zero emission buses regional area funding for our electrical bus fleet.

The problem for the hon. Member for Rother Valley—whether he is prepared to admit to us or to himself is unclear—is that the resources made available by Government are inadequate for the transformation that the Government want. I support the levelling-up agenda, but the truth of the matter is that the potential of the north and places such as South Yorkshire will be unlocked only with serious long-term investment. The Government need to provide a step change in funding for revenue and not just of capital spending, to give it everywhere, not just where it is politically convenient and suits the Government, and to allocate the majority in a way that we can count on, plan for and control.

The hon. Member talks about a strategic approach; it is entirely impossible, as I believe the Secretary of State for Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities would acknowledge, to be strategic because we have no certainty whatsoever about our funding streams. The funding needs to be much more certain than it has been, genuinely transformative and genuinely devolved. I am sad to say that it is impossible for me to conclude that the Government are serious about the process, which is a terrible shame, because without it we will not unlock the huge potential of areas such as ours. People not just in South Yorkshire but right around the country deserve much better.