Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I agree with my hon. Friend, and that is why we have put down a clear requirement that as Heathrow expands a proportion of its capacity is set aside for regional connectivity within the United Kingdom. It is really important that an expanded Heathrow is a gateway for the whole United Kingdom to opportunities around the world, as well as within the country.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I chair the parliamentary air safety group, and I know a little about the aviation sector. During consideration of a statutory instrument upstairs recently, I challenged a Minister to tell me which chief executive or chair of any airline he had talked to about this subject. I have talked to them, and they are terrified of the impact of a no-deal Brexit. He could not name one.

[Chris Grayling]

I have talked to the chief executives of every major UK airline. I have also talked to representatives of a significant number of international airlines.

Train Operating Companies: Yorkshire

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Wednesday 19th December 2018 Westminster Hall

[Paula Sherriff]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I absolutely agree. A very similar level of service is being delivered to my constituents, so I fully sympathise with his constituents.

Late or cancelled trains have a wide impact. Many of us consider a train to be something that gets us from A to B. Of course that is true, but the disruption is also having a significant impact on people’s mental health. They have no idea whether they will be able to get to work, and can get into quite serious trouble when they are late for the fourth day running. People might rely on them, such as clients or customers. They do not know whether they will get home in time to put their children to bed or see their partner. That is having a massive effect on family life and on social mobility, as not everybody drives. It is also affecting employment opportunities. I have spoken to a number of people who now say that they cannot get to work. They do not drive, so using the train is the only option, and it is not worth the stress.

Our region’s railways are among the least reliable in the country. Ironically, this week Northern rail unveiled a new advertising campaign, designed with safety in mind, to prevent passengers from boarding the trains as the doors are closing. The advert states that the train will depart the station “to the second”. If only! As I see it, there are two major issues with that. First, someone in the advertising department either has a very strange sense of humour or has severely misjudged the situation, given that so many trains have not departed on time during the last six months. Secondly, the campaign is in preparation for when Northern rail removes guards from trains, thus compromising customer safety and further eroding the service on offer to rail users in the north.

As a result of the chaos, many of those who drive, as I alluded to earlier, are turning back to their cars as a means of transport. Falling passenger numbers require action to boost confidence in and accessibility to the rail network. That has sadly not been forthcoming. Rail in the north is still very much the poor relation of services across the country. Recent research from the Institute for Public Policy Research North revealed that spending on transport in Yorkshire and the Humber fell by more per head from 2016-17 to 2017-18 than anywhere else in the country. It reported that, last year, spending per head on transport in our region was £315, which is more than three times less than the £1,019 spent in London. It is simply unacceptable that promised investment has been scrapped, downgraded or delayed, while money is funnelled into London and the south-east.

When it comes to the causes of the poor service, leaves on the line can be blamed for only so much. Indeed, when discussing compensation for rail passengers on BBC News this week, the Minister admitted that the infrastructure is not there to cope. Work to electrify key lines in the north-west was supposed to be finished two years ago, yet delays to that have had a knock-on effect across the north and have been blamed by Northern rail for its postponement of planned service improvements in Yorkshire.

The Minister blames decades of decline for the infrastructure’s inability to cope with network growth, yet it seems likely that the Transport Secretary is set to back a deeply flawed plan for the trans-Pennine route. If the plans that have been mooted go ahead, the tunnels will not be big enough to carry modern freight trains, and insufficient track is planned to allow faster trains to overtake slow ones.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend and neighbour is making a great speech. I must apologise—I have just sat on a broken-down train for half an hour, so she has even more sympathy than usual. She is right: what happened to the northern powerhouse? What happened to those promises of investment in our region?

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

Thank you, Dame Cheryl; it is a pleasure to be called in the debate and to serve under your chairmanship. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Paula Sherriff) for securing this important debate. I have an awful lot of time for her, and a great deal of time for Dewsbury, having stood there as a candidate one year—not against my hon. Friend, who I am sure would have wiped the floor with me. I endorse many of her comments completely, particularly those regarding the impact on her constituents.

I was lucky enough to be chosen to lead a debate in September on exactly the same issues. I have to say that since that debate things have got worse, not better. I spoke about some of the commuting difficulties for my constituents, regarding not just the service itself, but the lack of communication around the services. Scheduled services running from York to Scarborough were stopping at Malton and unloading all passengers at that station, which has no toilets and no café. People did not know that they would be unloaded at Malton; they expected to go through to Scarborough.

It was completely disgraceful. The least people might have expected was for TransPennine to have told them at York that they would be unloaded at Malton. They could therefore have stayed at York until the arrival of a through train to Scarborough. It is simply unacceptable that, this summer, 56 trains were stopped at Malton in those circumstances; in the summer of 2017, only six trains were. That represents how bad the service has been.

TransPennine has made lots of promises about improvements. It has said that changing the driver rotas should improve things, and that some of the improvements in the north-west should have resulted in improvements to the service. However, that improvement in the service has simply not happened. In fact, November was the worst month this year for punctuality on the service through to the east coast—only 65% of trains arrived on time, and 20% of trains were defined as late, which is again the worst performance of the year. It is simply not acceptable for TransPennine to say, “We’ve had these problems and things are getting better.” They are not getting better. The least we might have expected is for the communication to be getting better, and it does not seem to be.

I concur with my hon. Friend’s comments on increases in rail fares. Generally, it is right that fares increase, as long as some of the investment goes into our railways—it is clearly good that we are seeing the levels of investment that we are in our railways. However, where there is such terrible performance, it does not seem right that the people responsible for that performance also increase fares. I wonder what the Minister can say about that. Are there any sanctions available to him that he could impose on TransPennine to emphasise that it should not put fares up until the service has improved, as an incentive to improve the service? The political pressure is just not getting through. We are all talking about this, but the service is not improving.

I wrote to the regulator, the Office of Rail and Road, to ask for the inclusion of TransPennine in the inquiry into Northern and Govia Thameslink. I felt that the inquiry related to communications, and I do not know why it did not include TransPennine. At this point in time, when things have not improved and the service is clearly below par, it seems perfectly reasonable that the regulator should look into that in a more detailed way. Could the Minister apply pressure on the regulator to include TransPennine in the inquiry?

There is some good news; there is no question about that. Despite some of the comments about investment, we are seeing higher levels of investment. Part of the problem has been the investment in the north-west. The delays in the engineering works for that have had the knock-on effect of causing delays on the trains. We are looking forward to the doubling of the frequency of journeys from York through to Scarborough by the end of next year, which will be welcomed by many of my constituents, with longer trains, better trains and new trains. That is all very good, but I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury that we need a more strategic approach to investment right across the north.

My hon. Friend signed the letter that I sent to the Chancellor; in fact, 82 parliamentarians, including many who are here today, did so. It asked for a doubling of investment right across the north over the next 30 years. We are waiting for the Transport for the North report, and when we get that, the 82 parliamentarians who signed that letter need to work together collectively to lobby for a step change in investment over a long period of time. I think the figure of £100 billion is what we had in the letter. Some of that funding was for Northern Powerhouse Rail, which we all want to see—to bring forward that scheme so that it arrives at the same time as High Speed 2. I prefer to call that scheme Crossrail for the north, because that might move us up the pecking order.

On the comparison with investment in London, London is a great place, and I love being down here, but the level of investment is phenomenal. That leads to prosperity, because higher productivity leads to higher prosperity, and people in London are 50% more productive than people in the regions—not just the north, but right across the country. That is why average wages in London are 50% higher than in the rest of the country, and certainly than in the north. One thing leads to another. Investment leads to productivity, which is good for the UK economy and great for our constituents, because they become more prosperous as a result. We need a longer-term approach. It is a wonderful vision that we might see Crossrail for the north, or Northern Powerhouse Rail, connecting Liverpool to Manchester to Bradford to Leeds to York to Hull to Scarborough. It will transform opportunities right across the north, and that is exactly what we want.

[Mr Sheerman]

The hon. Gentleman and I are joint chairs of the all-party parliamentary group for Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire. Will he agree that many of us still believe that calling a halt to HS2 and investing that money in the sorts of trains our constituents travel on every day is better than this vanity project, which is going to cost £100 billion?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

That is a very interesting point. I am sure, Dame Cheryl, that you have your own view on it, which you might wish to express. At the very least, I would like to see Northern Powerhouse Rail, High Speed 3 or Crossrail for the north—whatever we want to call out—delivered at the same time. That is far more important than the north-south journeys.

The critical thing for me is to connect the cities, which gives opportunities to rural areas as well, and the key issue is devolution. The money and the powers should be devolved up to the north, so we do not have to come to Whitehall to ask for the money or to discuss where it should be spent—we should get the money in a long-term settlement. Devolution is key. It is great to see one of the current Mayors here, the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis), who is trying to work through the Sheffield devolution deal, which is very welcome. I think that devolution to the cities across Yorkshire—rather than to the wider county—is far more workable, and I am sure the hon. Gentleman will make a great job of the devolution deal he has on his table.

I am absolutely determined, as many here today are, to make sure we get a step change in investment, and to solve the shorter-term problems that the hon. Member for Dewsbury pointed to in her very compelling speech.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Grogan]

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. His constituents are very welcome at Burley in Wharfedale, Menston, Ilkley and so on. I believe in the critical safety role of the guard.

I will move on to talk about Boxing day trains. One consequence of the disruption on Northern and TransPennine is that they are not fulfilling their promise—it was in the franchise—to run Boxing day trains. Northern and their franchise were meant to run 60 Boxing day trains this year, and TransPennine were meant to have proposals that would be funded by Government. There are no Boxing day trains in Yorkshire, but there are four lines in the south-east of England that will be running Boxing day trains. The following football teams have home games in Yorkshire: Leeds United, Sheffield United and Barnsley. Harrogate are playing against Halifax—a big local derby in the lower leagues—and I will be watching Guiseley play against Bradford Park Avenue.

There is demand for public transport and trains on Boxing day. Buses now run in Leeds, Bradford and some other Yorkshire cities, whereas they did not a decade ago. Some people cannot go home for Christmas from London to Yorkshire, because they have to be at work on 27 December and they cannot get a train back on Boxing day. There are also the issues of the environment and of loneliness—not everyone relishes being at home for 72 hours at a stretch, in some cases on their own. I appeal to the Minister: let us have Boxing day trains, as in the franchise, on Boxing day 2019. I think he can be the man to deliver that.

We have not yet heard much of London North Eastern Railway in this debate. I understand that it has promised to have seven direct trains to London, which were meant to start in May 2019—previous transport Ministers have assured us that they would. My understanding is that they will now start in the autumn of next year, and I wonder whether the Minister can confirm that today. Lots of businesses in Bradford are really looking forward to those direct trains to London.

Finally, I want to share a railway success story, which is about the role of heritage railways. They will be running across Yorkshire during the holiday period. My distinguished predecessor Bob Cryer was instrumental in saving the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway, and my distinguished predecessor Ann Cryer is president of that railway. I have to report to Members that its “Santa special” on Christmas Eve is completely full—even the local MP cannot get a ticket. I am assured that if there are any cancellations, tickets will be available on Facebook.

[Mr Sheerman]

Bob Cryer used to shovel coal on the train. Has my hon. Friend been doing that?

[John Grogan]

There are many ways in which I cannot live up to my distinguished predecessor Bob Cryer, and that is just one of them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Judith Cummins]

I share my hon. Friend’s concern, and we all share her outrage.

[Mr Sheerman]

It is really simple: deep into the 21st century, towns and cities in Yorkshire should be connected by a regular, good, safe service that everyone can depend on. How can it be that my constituents and I cannot get to Bradford easily from Huddersfield? Why has the line between Huddersfield and Wakefield been closed, with a tremendous impact on those cities? Will my hon. Friend join me in going on those trains and waving banners?

[Judith Cummins]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. It is an immense frustration for me, as a Bradford MP, that we are not properly connected with the rest of the north. That causes problems and limits my constituents’ learning, development and job opportunities, which are crucial to a city like mine.

Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Thursday 22nd November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend puts his finger on the nub of the issue. The Labour party says, “If we just wave our magic wand, it will all be fine.” The reality is that we have a deeply congested railway facing big operational challenges. We are investing substantial amounts in it but—he points out the situation in Wales—there are no magic solutions anywhere in the country, under any Government.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Secretary of State can duck and dive but the fact is that there is a lack of strategic leadership in his Department. What we found in Huddersfield is that, overnight, they cancelled the link between Huddersfield and Wakefield Westgate, so people cannot get a main line train unless they go to Leeds—and nobody in Huddersfield would want to go to Leeds at any time. The fact of the matter is that we want good strategy and policies that stop people living in chaos and not being able to get to work or go on holiday.

[Chris Grayling]

What the hon. Gentleman needs are policies that invest money in rail in the north to deliver—as I know is happening at his station—new trains to replace long out-of-date trains and provide more services for passengers. That is what we are aiming to do and what we are doing.

Draft Operation of Air Services (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Monday 19th November 2018 General Committees

[Jesse Norman]

I cannot comment on the wisdom or otherwise of comments made at the time, but on 7 March this year the President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, said,

“I am determined to avoid that particularly absurd consequence of Brexit that is the disruption of flights between the UK and the EU.”

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Apropos of that intervention, may I say that I have been a chairman of the Transport Safety Commission for many years, and am chair of the committee on air safety for the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety? The industry—this vital sector to our economy and our country—is very worried. I hope that these regulations give some comfort to many in the industry who believe that there are many unresolved issues affecting our ability to travel by air.

[Jesse Norman]

The Committee will understand that this is one of a series of affirmative resolution statutory instruments that we are putting before the House. We can discuss each of those issues as it applies to them, but I am sure the hon. Gentleman is pleased that the EU recently commented that, for example, there will be no difficulty in overflying Ireland, which was one of the worries that people had. I expect that positive progress to continue.

As the Department responsible for aviation, we have conducted particularly intensive work to ensure that there continues to be a well-functioning legislative and regulatory regime for aviation. In the technical notices in September, we set out how that would work, and this instrument provides the means to deliver some of those outcomes.

It should be emphasised that this legislation is required only in a scenario in which the UK leaves the EU without a deal or an implementation period. The European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 converts EU law as it stands on exit day into domestic law, and preserves laws made in the UK to implement EU obligations. It will provide continuity and certainty to industry and consumers without prejudice to the outcome of the negotiations. However, as in other areas, some fixes are inevitably required to address deficiencies in the retained EU legislation to ensure it continues to function effectively once the UK has left the EU.

[Mr Sheerman]

I take it that the Minister is in regular communication with the Civil Aviation Authority. Is he also talking to the Irish Aviation Authority? As he knows, one of our biggest carriers, Ryanair, comes under the Irish authority, not the CAA, for regulation.

[Jesse Norman]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The officials and I would not be surprised if, in due course, Ryanair makes an application for a UK operator’s licence, in the way that many other carriers have done already. We are in regular contact, directly and through the CAA, with our opposite numbers among the officials to head off those kinds of concerns and to give that kind of comfort.

Although it is quite tightly defined, this SI relates to a formidably technical and complex area. Many of the references to the EU in what I am going to say later should be taken to include the EEA, depending on context. EU Regulation 1008/2008 provides the basis for the internal market in air services and consolidates provisions in a number of prior regulations that had gradually liberalised the market for air services within the EU. The regulation sets out harmonised conditions for licensing air carriers in the EU and provides the right for any EU-licensed air carrier to operate on any route within the EU without prior authorisation.

The regulation prohibits market distortions that had historically existed in Europe, such as restrictions on pricing or air carriers’ ability to set air fares freely and lease each other’s aircraft. It also sets out common rules for the provision of public service obligations—that is, scheduled flights to peripheral regions that would not otherwise be commercially viable. A further element of the internal market for which the regulation provides is what is known as wet-leasing. A wet-lease is when one air carrier leases an aircraft together with its crew, maintenance and insurance from another operator. EU air carriers can freely wet-lease aircraft registered in the EU, provided that that would not endanger safety, but restrictions are imposed on the lease of aircraft from beyond the EU.

The EU has also pursued an external aviation policy by making comprehensive air transport agreements with third countries, and by seeking consistency in the provisions of the bilateral air service agreements between member states and third countries. Regulation 847/2004 establishes a procedure for member states to notify each other and the Commission, and to work together on the negotiation and conclusion of air service agreements.

The draft regulations we are considering today fix deficiencies in the retained EU regulations, as I have briefly described, alongside the preserved domestic legislation made to implement aspects of those regulations, so that the statute book continues to function correctly after exit day. The effect of those changes was described in the technical notice published in September, which set out how the UK would regulate air carriers. Many of the changes make it clear that the retained legislation applies only to the UK, so, for instance, references to “Community air carrier” are replaced with “UK air carrier”. Alternatively, another amendment requires air carriers to have their principal place of business in “the United Kingdom” rather than in “a Member State”; that is one to which the hon. Member for Huddersfield referred earlier.

Since the UK would no longer participate in the EU’s external aviation policy and the Commission would have no authority in the UK, Regulation 847/2004 would be revoked. The UK would be free to negotiate ambitious bilateral air services agreements with other countries without regard to the Commission or to EU member states.

The European Union (Withdrawal) Act ensures that operating licences previously issued to UK air carriers remain valid. An operating licence is required by air carriers before they can offer commercial air transport, and ensures that UK air carriers are financially robust, appropriately insured and managed by fit and proper persons. A separate air operator certificate is also required, which ensures that the air carrier meets essential safety requirements. While all commercial aircraft operators require an air operator certificate to show that they are safe, some will not provide air transport services: for example, a hot air balloon offering pleasure flights would not do so and thus would not require an operating licence.

Separate instruments on aviation safety, security and the rights of air passengers will be brought to the House in the coming weeks. UK-licensed air carriers will need to continue to meet all the substantive requirements for a valid operating licence, with one exception: the requirement in Regulation 1008/2008 for air carriers to be majority owned and controlled by EU nationals would be revoked, since this is a definition that would no longer apply to UK nationals.

That requirement would be redundant for two reasons. First, nationality requirements are routinely specified in the terms of our air services agreements, which determine the eligibility of air carriers to operate under them, based on the nationality of their ownership. We expect that to include any agreements with the EU. Secondly, UK air carriers would require a route licence in order to operate beyond the UK, and there is a nationality requirement for a route licence. UK route licences predate the EU operating licence, and in many ways were superseded by it, so air carriers were exempted from the requirement for a route licence for operations to the EU.

Route licences serve a useful purpose in that, unlike an operating licence, conditions can be attached to the licence preventing air carriers from operating certain routes. Route licences are provided for free by the CAA to any UK carrier which requires one, and one of the conditions for a route licence is that the applicant should be a UK national, or an undertaking controlled by UK nationals. The Secretary of State also has long-established powers to instruct the CAA to waive this requirement, which he has historically done, most recently for easyJet UK and WizzAir UK.

As a result of this instrument, the rules for wet-leasing foreign aircraft will remain stable. UK air carriers seeking to wet-lease a foreign-registered aircraft will be required to demonstrate to the satisfaction of the CAA, as they do today, that doing so would not endanger safety. If that aircraft was registered in a country other than in the EU, they would also have to demonstrate to the Secretary of State that safety standards equivalent to the UK’s would be met.

[Mr Sheerman]

I appreciate that we are limited in time, but the Minister is going quite fast through some quite technical stuff. What happens to the air accidents investigation branch and its remit? In future, how will it co-operate across Europe on accidents? We have gone through a long period where we have had very few air accidents, but recently we have had some pretty bad ones; these things go in cycles. The great thing about the European sector is that there is a very good comprehensive agreement on the investigation of every fatal accident. Could he put my mind at rest on that?

[Jesse Norman]

Yes, of course. Sir Christopher, you will understand that, as I said, there is a lot of material to get through and because of taking interventions, I have been keen to try to compress the amount of time that I spend on my feet.

[Mr Sheerman]

I wanted to let the Minister catch his breath—give him some breathing space.

[Jesse Norman]

It is all very welcome. The hon. Gentleman will understand that the CAA predates the European Aviation Safety Agency, and in many ways has acted as a model, and in some respects a coach, to it. The AAIB has a well-established reputation in its field. I have no doubt they will continue to co-operate very closely. The precise arrangements remain part of the wider picture of the negotiation, but there is absolutely no reason to think that the close co-operation that currently exists should not be extended after withdrawal next year.

I will continue on the issue of wet-leasing. If the aircraft in question was registered in a country other than in the EU, UK carriers would also have to demonstrate to the Secretary of State that safety standards equivalent to the UK’s would be met and that the lease was justified on the basis of exceptional needs, or to satisfy seasonal capacity requirements or overcome operational difficulties. Permission may be refused, of course, if there is no reciprocity with regards to wet-leasing to the country in which the aircraft is registered.

Notwithstanding the continuity provided for and the fixes that I have described, this instrument makes a number of changes to reflect the fact that EU-licensed air carriers would no longer enjoy the automatic right to operate to, from or within the UK. Contracts for public service obligations in the EU can be won by any EU-licensed carrier, but changes made by this instrument would mean that only UK-licensed air carriers, and carriers from countries with which the UK has exchanged the right to operate wholly within each other’s territory, would qualify for PSO contracts in the UK.

As all the PSOs in force in the UK are currently operated by UK-licensed air carriers, there will be no impact on existing services. Similarly, existing domestic regulations provide for a rarely used process in cases where the frequency of operations between the UK and another country is constrained by provisions in the relevant air service agreement.

Although air services are not included within the scope of the World Trade Organisation, there is an international legal framework for the operation of air services—the Chicago convention of 1944. One of its provisions is that scheduled international air services are prohibited except with the special permission of the state concerned. The UK provides this permission through the air services agreements it concludes with other countries and the issuing of foreign carrier permits by the CAA. Amendments made by this instrument would require EU air carriers to apply for a permit before operating to the UK. That will ensure that all air carriers operating to the UK have full and proper safety oversight and that their aircraft are properly maintained and operated.

We envisage granting permits to EU carriers to continue operating to the UK, and I was pleased that, in its Brexit preparedness communication on 13 November, the Commission confirmed that it intends to reciprocate for UK air carriers. In addition to the announcements about visa-free travel, the Commission said that UK air carriers would still be able to fly over the EU, including Ireland, and to land in and fly back from the EU. Those points reinforce what I believe is a positive and encouraging emerging picture of future co-operation.

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)]

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I will be brief. As the Minister has already outlined, these amendments make minor changes to EU regulations as they come into UK law under the European Union (Withdrawal) Act. It is clear that the Government are attempting to mitigate any potential problems relating to the operation of air services once we leave the EU. There has been considerable concern, however, over operating licences remaining valid post Brexit. Therefore, we very much welcome this clarity. In this case, stakeholders have stated that the Government and the Department for the Transport engaged with them properly. We welcome that as well.

Labour Members believe that a strong aviation sector is crucial to the UK’s status as a global, outward-looking nation, and that is even more important following our decision to leave the EU. We believe that any new service agreements for the aviation industry following Brexit should seek to replicate the existing arrangements as much as possible.

[Mr Sheerman]

I am a bit worried that my hon. Friend seems to be so positive about this. We have just witnessed the Minister gambolling through—in an entertaining way, but very quickly—this very important piece of delegated legislation. This is complex stuff. Is this the template for what will happen under the agreement to leave the EU: that this kind of legislation will be rushed through in small meetings such as this, with no time to study it or ask for detail? If that is the template, I am very worried.

[Karl Turner]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point. We are clearly concerned about the Government rushing regulations through, but he should be aware that the reason they have rushed this—if he wants to put it like that—is because the Opposition have pressured them for some months to bring forward the regulations to ensure that air service agreements are valid post Brexit. However, I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention.

It remains the UK aviation industry’s priority that the Government achieve a comprehensive, liberal new air services agreement with the EU in any final Brexit arrangement. There is not a huge amount of detail in the draft withdrawal document about what air services agreement will be in place beyond the transition period.

However, despite the ongoing chaos from this Government, we welcome the fact that last week, the European Commission—after much pressure from the Opposition, I must say—eventually published guidance confirming that flights between the UK and the EU would continue in the event of a no-deal Brexit. That was met with widespread relief from the industry.

[Mr Sheerman]

I am sorry to interrupt my hon. Friend’s very good speech, but what words have the official Opposition had with anyone in Ireland about how these regulations affect Ireland, and the relationship between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland? This is one industry where there is a very strong Irish element in the way that we operate. It is very complex indeed. What level of negotiation and discussion have the official Opposition had with the Irish Government on this?

[Karl Turner]

I have to be honest with my hon. Friend: I do not know the answer to the question. I suspect that colleagues higher up than me in the shadow team have had discussions with colleagues in the EU. For example, I know that the Leader of the Opposition has met officials in the EU.

The Opposition have always maintained that the aviation sector should have been the first priority for the Government in their negotiations with the EU. Given the chaos last week, is the Minister confident that there are no more problems coming down the road?

As this legislation does not make any substantive changes to licensing requirements for air carriers and aircraft operators, and there has been thorough consultation between the Department for Transport and leading stakeholders in the aviation industry, the Opposition support these measures. It is right that the aviation industry has been consulted comprehensively. The aviation Minister in the other place has stated that these amendments do “no more than appropriate”. We agree with that.

[Mr Sheerman]

I am sorry to intervene again. The Minister said that, as far as he is concerned, there will be no impact on existing services. How can he know that? How can the Opposition know that? I am worried that this big change in regulation will have a very big impact on existing services. We should be much more aware of our rights and responsibilities as parliamentarians in ensuring that things are up to the standard we expect.

[Karl Turner]

Again, my hon. Friend makes a valid point. I am sure the Minister has taken his comments on board, but it is a matter for the Minister to come back and satisfy the Committee.

[Mr Sheerman]

He said, “No impact.”

[Karl Turner]

My hon. Friend says from a sedentary position that the Minister said there would be no impact. I think the Minister has taken on board the points that my hon. Friend has raised, and I expect him to come back on that.

I have one or two questions of my own for the Minister. Given that the CAA will get further regulatory powers and become the licensing authority to deliver oversight and take measures against carriers if necessary, is he absolutely satisfied that it is fully resourced? Does he foresee any issues in that respect? I look forward very much to his response.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Sheerman]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. My remarks will be brief, and I have been lucky to make so many interventions.

I am deeply worried about the whole process, and not only because I have spent many years involved in air safety. I know quite a lot about the industry and I have very good communications with it. The industry does not think that there will be—to quote the Minister—no impact on existing services. The industry thinks there will be a great deal of impact on existing services. It does not know precisely what because we are in limbo. Nobody knows what the Government are going to do, who the Prime Minister might be or what the Leader of the Opposition or the Opposition think about the current situation. In a sense, we are gambolling though at a fast rate.

I am a great admirer of the Minister’s style and intellect, but he is rushing this measure through with not one word from Back Benchers. Our job is to scrutinise legislation. That is at the very core of what a Member of Parliament should do. I am not sure that I know that people will be safe flying after we leave the European Union. I am not sure that we have the right relationships for investigating the standards and how we operate. I have not had any affirmation that there has been serious communication with the Irish Government. In aviation, we are closely entangled with the Irish and also the United States. Our biggest traffic is across the Atlantic to North and South America. Have there been discussions? As someone who is long versed in aviation safety, I do not believe that the process of scrutiny is good enough.

[Michael Fabricant]

If the hon. Gentleman does not agree with the manner in which we are scrutinising, is that not more an issue for the Procedure Committee than for this Committee? It seems to me that he is complaining more about how we conduct SIs, rather than the actual meat of this piece of legislation.

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[Mr Sheerman]

I am pleased that I gave way to the hon. Gentleman. I have known him for many years, and both of us are serious about the role of the parliamentary process. Our job is scrutiny. This is a very important Committee because it is one of the first in terms of Brexit. Is this to be the template, where we skate through, do not look at the fine detail, and say, “We can trust the Government and the Opposition”?

Our job as parliamentarians is to go through this stuff line by line, even if it takes all night. That is the importance of air safety: it is one area where everything matters.

There must be a full understanding of the safety systems of international aviation, and I want to know what the relationship will be with IATA and other international organisations that deal with how we safely transport people across the world. I am not sure we have thought this through. I am not sure about the negotiations: I do not know how often the Minister has talked to aviation experts, in Brussels or anywhere else. I hope he will put our minds at rest. This is a most complex area, and as someone who has been in this sector for a long time, I do not believe that we are doing justice to our responsibilities to our constituents, who are the travellers who might be at risk.

[Jesse Norman]

I am grateful to all hon. Members who have made interventions and speeches in the debate so far. Let me pick up the various points that have been raised, because they are of considerable interest. I am very grateful to the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East for his recognition of the level of engagement that my officials and the CAA have had with their opposite numbers across Europe. He is absolutely right about that, and I know they will be grateful that the Opposition have recognised the work they have been doing.

Secondly, the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East says the Opposition’s position is that any agreement should seek to replicate the current law with a comprehensive agreement governing air services, safety, and the like. Of course, that is absolutely right, and the Government agree with him. He has asked me, as has the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith, whether we can be confident that problems will not emerge, or might not emerge in the future. The answer is that no one can predict the future, but the Government believe there is every reason to think that air connectivity will be retained between the UK and the EU. It is in no one’s interest to disrupt air services, and I remind the Committee that the European Commission has confirmed in the past few days that it intends to reciprocate grants of permits to EU air carriers in relation to UK carriers. It has also made announcements about 90 days of visa-free travel and overflights across the EU, including Ireland. All of that points in a direction that gives confidence to anyone who might be concerned, and I am grateful that the issue has been raised.

[Mr Sheerman]

On that point—

[Jesse Norman]

No, I will come to the hon. Member for Huddersfield’s speech, and he can intervene on me at that time. [Interruption.]

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[Jesse Norman]

Having taken many interventions, Sir Christopher, I am sure you will understand if I respond in an orderly way to the points raised. If the hon. Member for Huddersfield wishes to intervene in relation to his own speech, he is welcome to do so.

The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East also raised the question of whether Ministers were happy with the resourcing of the CAA. Of course, the answer is yes. The CAA is already the licensing authority for UK carriers. It has conducted internal assessments and, in discussions with officials, has determined that it does not require additional resources, so we think that the CAA will remain the robust and highly effective organisation that it has been for many years.

The hon. Member for Huddersfield raised a series of questions. The first, which he raised in his interventions, was about the AAIB. I want to recognise the work that the AAIB has done very rapidly in relation to the tragic incident at Leicester City football club. That shows what a high-quality organisation it is, and we are grateful that it did not waste any time. The hon. Gentleman asked whether the legislation has been rushed through, and spoke eloquently about parliamentarians’ duty to their constituents to make sure that legislation has been properly scrutinised. Of course, he is absolutely right about that. Precisely for that reason, and because I know he takes an historical interest in air travel, the Committee can be sure, I am certain, that he read carefully the technical notices outlining the Government’s position when they were published some months ago. I am sure we can take it that he knew—I am surprised he did not mention it in his speech—that this statutory instrument was published on 17 October and, therefore, colleagues have had a full month to debate and consider it.

[Mr Sheerman]

The Minister is being very generous in giving way and I do not want to be unfair to him. We work on transport safety in different sectors very harmoniously. However, can I just ask him how many chief executives and chairmen of major airlines has he spoken to on this? How many people has he spoken to in Europe? I want to know chapter and verse who he has spoken to and at what level before he put this forward to the Committee.

[Jesse Norman]

I am very happy to answer that. As the hon. Gentleman will know from his close scrutiny of the Government, the lead Minister on this brief is Baroness Sugg. I am the spokesman in the Commons. She has met many chief executives across the industry. I can assure him that she is extremely expert and has taken plenty of advice and input from all of them. I do not think that there can be much question about the fact that, had the hon. Gentleman wished to avail himself of the time available, he could have given this legislation the scrutiny that he says it deserves. It surprises me that he has not given it that scrutiny.

[Mr Sheerman]

Is the Minister saying I have not done my homework?

[The Chair]

Order. The hon. Gentleman is trying the Committee’s patience.

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[Mr Sheerman]

On a point of order, Sir Christopher. This is unfair. The Minister alleges that I did not do my homework before I came to this Committee. He knows that I spend a lot of time on this subject and know quite a lot about the industry. He suggests that I, as a colleague, have come to this Committee having failed in my duty as a parliamentarian, because I have not lobbied on this before the Committee met. This Committee is the important place for me to raise these issues on behalf of my constituents, and that is what I am doing.

[The Chair]

That is not a point of order.

Rail Review: Terms of Reference

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Thursday 11th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. We are now moving ahead with automated Delay Repay and the rolling out of 15-minute Delay Repay, which I know is a matter close to her heart; I hope and expect to bring that to her network in 2019.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Secretary of State knows that there will be disappointment with his statement. It is not far-reaching enough and it is insensitive to launch something like this, which has aspirations really to change the rail sector, when he knows that the rail sector is a community of very dedicated people—staff and travellers. We all know that community very well, but he started off by rubbishing one part of it. That is not the way to build the community. Everybody in that sector—I admit that it is a strange sector—knows the confusion that came out of the botched privatisation by the John Major Government, because there are three partners that do not seem to come together. Those three partners will never come together unless we have leadership from the Secretary of State; that is woefully lacking today.

[Chris Grayling]

In all the conversations that I have had with people across the rail industry, I have met very few who disagree with my analysis about the need to bring back together the operation of the track and the train. What comes out of this review has to deliver a more joined-up railway.

Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Thursday 11th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

None the less, Mr Speaker, you will recall that in the debates in Committee on the Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill, such infrastructure became affectionately known as “Hayes hook-ups”, and we expect to see them spreading round the country shortly. Quite apart from the work we are doing with local authorities to ensure, for example, that lamp post installations contain the facility for on-street charging, what is particularly exciting is the progress being made towards high-speed, high-voltage charging, which I think within a relatively short number of years will lead to the ability to charge a vehicle in under 10 minutes. That is when we will see the breakthroughs that spread electric vehicles all across our society.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Can I offer the Secretary of State a really good opportunity for a win on electric vehicles? The biggest fleets in our country are the waste trucks that pick up waste from every house in every street in every part of our country every week, and they are polluting vehicles. This is a great opportunity. Dennis Eagle, a British manufacturer, is now producing a battery-operated waste truck. If we could get electric trucks to pick up the waste in this country, we would have a fantastic decline in pollution in our cities.

[Chris Grayling]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman. The roads Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman), is already working with manufacturers on transforming the local delivery fleet network, but we will certainly take on board the hon. Gentleman’s suggestion. I was not aware that that vehicle had been produced. If we are going to meet air quality challenges, we need to make the kind of change he describes.

Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Thursday 5th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend, who has been doing a fantastic job of trying to get the A27 project back on track. I am absolutely aware of its importance to her constituency and to the south coast. It is important that the community in Chichester reaches a consensus about the right option, and of course I then want to see the project go ahead.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Secretary of State knows the effect on productivity in places such as Yorkshire and my constituency. On the 70th anniversary of the NHS, when we wish all those workers a very good day, is it not a fact that many of them are struggling to get to work because of his policies and his lack of sense of direction on transport infrastructure?

[Chris Grayling]

Actually it is this Government who are investing in rail and are providing new trains right across the north; who have just opened the last stretch of motorway-grade road between London and Newcastle; who are investing money in smart motorways; and who are putting money into Leeds, to ensure better connectivity there, and into towns and cities around the north. I wish Opposition Members would start to talk up the north and the improvements that are happening, rather than talking it down and pretending nothing is happening.

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[Mr Speaker]

Oh very well, it is always good to encourage a new young Member at the start of his parliamentary career. I call Mr Barry Sheerman.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Secretary of State knows very well that millions of our people are being poisoned by the filthy emissions from buses, trucks and cars. When is he going to do something about it?

[Chris Grayling]

Before I respond to that question, I just say to the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner) that I had been under the impression that the meeting was already organised. If that is not the case, I will make sure that it is.

On clean transport, this is a central part of the Government’s strategy. It is why we are spending money on supporting low-emission bus vehicles and on encouraging people to buy low-emission vehicles. When we publish our Road to Zero strategy shortly, we will be setting out more of our plans to create a greener vehicle fleet on our roads.

National Policy Statement: Airports

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Monday 25th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andy McDonald]

My hon. Friend makes a good point, which I hope shortly to be able to address in some detail.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I must confess that I am a waverer on Heathrow expansion. I do not like the air quality dangers we face or the Government’s target to do something about air quality by 2040, by which time 1 million people will have died. People in the north of England, in Yorkshire and in Huddersfield want to know what investment they will get. This is yet another massive investment in London and the south-east.

[Andy McDonald]

My hon. Friend raises two significant points about air quality and investment across the United Kingdom. I hope to address them in great detail as I proceed with my speech.

Rail Timetabling

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Monday 4th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

We need to establish who is directly responsible for the decision making that has been got wrong here, establish the truth through the Glaister review and then take appropriate action—and we will.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

My constituents, and the people in Yorkshire and the north, love their railway system, but they want it to be a good system that is safe and secure and that runs on time, to get them to work and to see their family. Does the Secretary of State realise just how much misery has been caused to so many families over these past weeks? I am not the most radical or left-wing member of my party, but even I believe that the system of privatisation has not worked and will never work, and that it is time we had a public service railway system in our country.

[Chris Grayling]

Of course I understand the frustration that the hon. Gentleman experiences. The irony is that these timetable problems have resulted from a planned expansion in services for his constituents and others across the north. It was designed to deliver thousands of extra train services for people across the north of England. It has not worked today and it must work soon.

Global Road Deaths

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Tuesday 24th April 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered global road deaths.

Not many people realise this, but 3,500 homes will today have a knock on the door, and a policewoman or policeman will say to the person who opens the door that their son, daughter, mum, dad, uncle or aunt is dead. Some 3,500 people die on the roads globally every day. That is, at a conservative estimate, 1.3 million people dying on the road on this planet of ours each year. That is a disgraceful number.

I have been in this place longer than you, Mr Hollobone, but you will recall that I have form when it comes to being passionate about tackling road deaths. I shall be very careful today, and I hope that colleagues will stop me if I mention something that ends in “safety”, because I do not believe in that description. I think that we should talk about road deaths and serious road casualties, because that brings home to us the reality that 3,500 people die on the roads every day and 1.3 million die every year.

According to the World Health Organisation, road accidents are the 10th leading cause of death globally—the number of people killed in road accidents is just under that for deaths from tuberculosis, which is in ninth place—and they are forecast to be the seventh biggest cause of death by 2030. But unlike natural disasters or disease, this is a human-made problem and every one of the deaths is avoidable—every one of them.

[Stephen Kerr (Stirling) (Con)]

We should discontinue the term “road traffic accidents”, because, in fact, that is not the case at all—these are road traffic collisions.

[Mr Sheerman]

I did promise that I would not call them accidents or talk about safety.

As I said, I have form on this issue. Very early in my career, I saw two young people thrown from a car and dying by the side of the road, and I never lost that image in my mind. They had been thrown out of the car because they were not wearing seatbelts. When I came to this place, I tried to do something about the issue. My only successful private Member’s Bill—the only time I have come in the top 10 in the ballot—was my Safety of Children in Cars Bill, which stopped children being carried unrestrained in cars. After that, with a little help from the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), who is now the Father of the House, I managed to wangle past him a coalition that delivered adult seatbelts. We managed to get a 72 majority in the vote the night before a royal wedding, and I am very proud that that was the case. We then took the coalition that succeeded in that and called it PACTS—the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety. I still have the privilege and honour of chairing that organisation. After 10 years, we formed the European Transport Safety Council, as regulation was moving to Europe. Some years after that, I became chairman of the Global Road Safety Partnership established by the World Bank.

[Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

I think that I have to challenge my hon. Friend. He said that if he mentioned the word “safety”, colleagues in the Chamber should stop him, so I am stopping him—because he has a very proud record on transport safety, in terms of seatbelts, his private Member’s Bill, the role that he played in setting up the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety and his recent role, which I am sure he will come on to, leading the inter-country legislators committee at the United Nations. Safety is in his DNA, and he should not be embarrassed by that.

[Mr Sheerman]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend, who has campaigned with me for many years on this topic. One thing that I am trying to highlight today is that too many of us in this field have been doing this work for a long time. We need fresh blood; we need new people coming in who will be as passionate as we have been. Certainly part of my role as chair of the Global Network for Road Safety Legislators will be trying to enthuse people in legislatures around the world to get involved—to understand that 1.3 million deaths a year is unacceptable to any civilised society.

When I was working in this area some years ago, a Swedish professor—a doctor—said to me, “We have to get the United Nations to take this seriously and then we can lift the profile of what is happening on our roads.” As Lord Robertson said in a presentation only recently, people forget that if road deaths carry on at the present level, more people will die in the 21st century on the roads than died in all the wars of the 20th century. I hope you agree, Mr Hollobone, that that is a chilling statistic.

I want to say a little about Britain. In 2016, 181,384 casualties on Britain’s roads were recorded. There were 1,792 fatalities—that is 1,792 knocks on the door. Please let us use that all the time—the knock on the door, the chilling moment when someone is told that a member of their family has died. The long-term trend in the numbers of people killed and injured in road accidents has been declining, but the decline has stalled since 2011, and in 2016 we actually had an increase. To those figures we should add the road deaths and injuries in Northern Ireland; otherwise the Minister, who understands these stats very well, would pick me up on that.

It is important that the United Nations now has road safety as one of its sustainable development goals. Why is that? It is because the United Nations knows that that is vital to taking on poverty worldwide. We know that the death of a member of a family in the developing world usually means that family unit lurching into poverty, or, if it is a long-term disability, it drags the family down because it affects their ability to live a decent life. These tragedies are not just about statistics; they affect real families.

In relation to the countries that we have knowledge of, we know that we probably have an underestimate of the numbers of people dying. I was in Beijing not many months ago, and an interesting fact is that, mysteriously, as soon as the United Nations introduced a 5% reduction target, a 5% reduction started appearing every year in the Chinese statistics. I am saying that the stats may be worse even than we are arguing today.

I have just come back from New York, where we had a General Assembly debate on road deaths. It was a very good debate indeed, and a motion was passed on an action programme that I think will be very useful if we take it seriously.

I am arguing today that the United Kingdom has great knowledge about transport safety and great expertise. We have quite a good record. It is not the best in the world—sometimes Sweden is better than us—but the fact is that we have a good record. As I said, we have enormous knowledge; we have research centres and research evidence. We know very well how to reduce the number of accidents on the road, and we do not do that by a lovely gesture.

I have been in this field long enough to know that someone has only to knock on the door of an insurance company and it will say, “I will give you this flashy little thing that you can put on your bicycle when it’s dark and it will illuminate you and prevent accidents.” Another company will say, “I’ll give you lots of money to have a brand-new version of the Tufty Club, where you train all children about road safety.” Neither of those things, according to the research evidence, has been very successful at all. They may be quite fun to do, but they are not the way in which we tackle these things.

I have worked very closely with the Safer Roads Foundation. It knows very well the efficacy—all the research shows this—of low-cost engineering schemes. We know where people are having accidents. We modify the landscape; we do something about a particular junction that is dangerous, and that low-cost engineering scheme provides the best return possible on our investment.

We have knowledge of the research across the world. I also chair the international committee for road safety research. That is an attempt to link all the researchers on this planet of ours to one another so that we know what each of us is doing. We have worked very closely with India, for example. It is a case of finding out which research can help and sharing the information. One nation will have done the research and can pass it on quickly to the others.

We did not have a millennium development goal for road safety, but the sustainable development goals adopted by the United Nations changed the whole framework. We are now being taken seriously and we need to work very hard indeed to ensure that we achieve something substantial.

In September 2015, at a UN Heads of Government summit, the UK accepted sustainable development goal target 3.6, to halve road deaths by 2020. That was welcomed, but it was rather paradoxical, as our Government have failed to adopt a target for the UK since 2010. The Minister and I get on very well. He knows that, in a debate like this, I will nudge him again on two things: first, to have targets in the UK and, secondly, to have a national centre for investigation of all road accidents, particularly road accidents involving a road death.

We know that we are holding back casualty reduction at home. Targets are not a solution, but they do indicate ambition and commitment, and they influence where we put the resources. When the Government have targets for issues such as reducing suicides, hospital waiting times and net migration, it is hard to see the logic for not having an accident death reduction goal as well.

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful point and one that many of us have challenged the Government on since 2010. Does he agree that it is completely anomalous that the Government are signed up to the sustainable development goals for the reduction of road casualties, deaths and serious injuries internationally, and that they are signed up to the European Union’s targets for the reduction of road deaths and serious injuries, but that they will not sign up to targets for the reduction of deaths and serious injuries in the United Kingdom?

[Mr Sheerman]

I take that point. My hon. Friend is a great campaigning friend of mine. I did not know whether to apply for this debate under this Department or the Department for International Development. I hope that I am stimulating a relationship between the Department for Transport, which is very good—I will give it its due—and has a Minister who cares about this, and the International Development team, so that they make proposals.

Using our experience, research and knowledge to help people around the world is one of the best investments we can make in helping a developing country at the moment. Road crashes are the No.1 killer of young Africans aged between 15 and 29. Certain countries leap off the page, such as Tanzania and South Africa, because they are well above where they should be, given the size of their population, the nature of their roads, and the number of people driving cars and two-wheeled vehicles. Much of this has a heartbreaking real cost. Road crashes frequently kill or injure household breadwinners, causing loss of income, increased costs—such as those of caring for a disabled victim—and tipping people into deepest poverty.

The Overseas Development Institute report “Securing safe roads” contained in-depth analysis in three cities—Nairobi, Mumbai and Bogota. That analysis was led by the ODI and the World Resources Institute, which found that it is the poorest sections of society that bear the brunt of traffic-related injuries and deaths, and that politicians and the public tend to blame individual road users for collisions, rather than policy makers or planners.

Can I put this next point at the heart of my remarks? The fact is that, in many ways, cars have become much safer—like a cocoon. My wife recently changed her car because she wanted a hybrid car. It has automatic collision avoidance and 16 airbags. Cars are safer and getting safer still thanks to some of the great work that is being done on the new car assessment programme worldwide. The people in danger are the vulnerable road users—the pedestrians, cyclists and people on two-wheeled vehicles—across the world. Those are the people we really have to worry about.

In terms of other places, America is in fact slipping back on its success. There should be good laws and sensible research-based activity by Government, such as seatbelt legislation, as well as law enforcement, so that people are not let off, or able to pay bribes, because they do not want to be caught for speeding or drunk driving. In the United States, because the states have different rules and regulations, many of their cars do not have rear seatbelts or regulation on that. They are slipping behind. We need that mixture of wise laws, good science-based answers and ensuring that these laws are obeyed. How confident are the Government that their contribution to accident prevention overseas will be well spent?

There is a new United Nations trust, which we established last week. It has every possibility of being a good and substantial fund. The Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile put in the first £10 million, and some companies will put in. However, given my experience with the World Bank and the Global Road Safety Partnership, there is a danger that we put too much emphasis on the private sector. Individual Governments must come in. I hope the British Government will put money into the United Nations trust, but they must ensure that there are strings attached, so that we know that the money flows to evidence-based, good ends.

We need to support the development of a road accident strategy across the world. We need to highlight what the Overseas Development Institute report says. We need to reframe road safety in public debates, making connections with issues that people care about, such as the economy, equality and education, and to build alliances at all levels of government, including local, regional and national. We must also produce, in every country, a dedicated road safety plan with short, medium and long-term objectives.

I have had the privilege to work with some very good people on this. Etienne Krug at the World Health Organisation in Geneva has been inspirational in the work that I have done. David Ward and the team from his organisation produced the wonderful report “Manifesto #4roadsafety”for the Global Network for Road Safety Legislators—that comes out of the Towards Zero Foundation. There are some very good people in this area, but at the end of the day, we must ensure that we have, as the World Health Organisation says, a policy called “save lives” based on an integrated safe-systems approach. The WHO report recommends 22 priority interventions in six key areas: speed management, leadership, infrastructure, vehicle safety, enforcement and post-crash survival.

To conclude, we know the answers. We can stop these 1.3 million deaths. We can reduce them dramatically if we work together on the basis of good laws that are enforced fairly and squarely across every country that we work with. We have an enormous opportunity to save lives, communities and families. Let’s go for it!

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

I am obliged to call the Front-Bench spokespeople no later than 5.8 pm. The guideline limits are five minutes for the Scottish National party, five minutes for Her Majesty’s Opposition and 10 minutes for the Minister. Then Mr Sheerman has a minute or so to sum up the debate at the end. There are five hon. Members seeking to catch my eye, including at least two former firemen. I am afraid there will have to be a time limit of four minutes to ensure that everyone gets in.

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[Mr Sheerman]

We have a thoughtful Minister, and we are building a good relationship with him. This is not a party political matter—