Net Zero Targets and Decarbonising Transport

Caroline Nokes Excerpts

Tuesday 4th February 2020 Westminster Hall

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Caroline Nokes (in the Chair)]

Only five Members wish to speak, so I hope that each will be generous with the time that they leave for others. I call Lyn Brown.

[Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

I am very grateful to serve under your chairship for the first time, Ms Nokes, and I look forward to doing so again in future.

I am grateful for the opportunity to talk about the green transformation that our transport system needs. More than anything else, we need affordable and accessible public transport, with electric buses and zero-carbon trains, right across the country. We need to make good green investments now, and to stop making dirty investments.

City residents already emit far less carbon from travel. Londoners’ transport emissions are less than half the UK average. That is because we have a decent bus, tube and train system—we have to invest those systems to create the benefits in our cities and towns—but we still have to make London’s transport greener.

We must stop making dirty investments. The dirty investment closest to my constituency is City airport in Newham, from which I am sure that many hon. Members have flown. It is a lovely little airport, I will admit, but I have constantly opposed its expansion. As a young woman, I even went to the public inquiry to advocate against it being built. I heard all the rubbish that residents and my friends and neighbours were told about how the airport would be contained, would not grow and would not impact on their lives. When I visited my mum and dad in the block of flats where I grew up, however, the back of my throat was coated with fuel—I could taste it. Dad has had throat cancer and mum has had breast cancer, although I am sure that none of that is related.

It is not just about airports. I want to focus on another big local decision: the Silvertown tunnel. In east London, we have a problem with public transport connections across the river. Some might say, “Who wants to go to the south side?”, but some people do and the lack of connections is a major problem. The lack of decent public transport links means that people drive—they see no other option. The Blackwall tunnel and all the roads around it are hugely congested; the queues go on for absolutely miles, pumping out carbon and deadly pollution all the while. The new tunnel is not the solution.

I am told that building Silvertown will cost an estimated £1 billion, using a private finance initiative, so local residents will have to pay for the construction of the new tunnel through tolls. To ensure that the tolls pay, we will also toll the Blackwall tunnel and probably the Rotherhithe tunnel, while the crossing down at Thurrock is also tolled. So, the people of east London, where child poverty is massive and poverty in general is undeniably high, will pay for the joy of going south of the river, while the people of west London can pop across a number of bridges. There are also good transport links in west London—but not in the east. That, however, is not the only reason I am against Silvertown. I am against the tunnel because its construction alone will cause massive carbon emissions: more than 153,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide, the same as the total emissions of more than 28,000 UK residents last year.

If everything that the tunnel’s big business backers say about the construction of the tunnel were true, at least there might be some benefits from having it once it is built. I am afraid I do not believe that, and I am sure that many Members in the Chamber would not believe it either. We know that when a road is put in, people use it. They see it as an even better opportunity to get into their car and to drive and, before long, that road too is congested. I am not the only one who does not believe in those benefits, because on the record are my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook) and Newham, Hackney and Lewisham Councils. We all oppose the tunnel, as do more and more of my residents as they find out what is happening on their doorstep.

The truth is that the roads leading up to the tunnel are already massively congested, and no one is planning to widen them, so the congestion is likely to continue. In a best-case scenario, the queues will possibly die down in the immediate lead-up to the tunnel—to begin with. Even if that happens, however, I fear that all the extra traffic will simply be diverted to a bottleneck further down the road towards Barking and out to the east, or on to our already choked local roads, as people attempt to divert around the problems. Congestion might therefore not fall at all, despite the new tolls on all the crossings in the east—I think I mentioned that, but it is a bit of a bugbear.

Why is big business so in favour of a tunnel at Silvertown? It will be taller than the Blackwall tunnel, which was built almost 150 years ago, I think, and massive lorries will therefore be able to go through it from south to north. Also, those heavy goods vehicles, unlike bicycles, have been promised a special lane of their own—they will share the bus lane. HGVs, the big nasty polluters on our roads, will get special concessions to get through the new tunnel. We know why they are so keen to see HGVs going through the Silvertown tunnel: conveniently, a three-storey, 24-hour warehouse and lorry park is planned for not far away from it. That will be at least 2,500 extra lorries a day from that distribution centre alone.

The stakes are high in such decisions—we all accept that. In Newham, 16,000 children attend schools close to the feeder roads in Silvertown, with a similar number in Greenwich. We already have high air pollution at illegal levels. Newham, where Silvertown is—in case anyone was in any doubt—has the worst toxic air quality in the country. The British Heart Foundation estimates that breathing the air is as bad for health as smoking 159 cigarettes annually, stunting child development and leading to 96 premature deaths every year.

The impacts are not just local. This is not only about Silvertown but about the type of decisions that we are making. We need to make the right decisions now in order to prevent a climate disaster. We need to protect our children from these outrageous decisions that will significantly impact on their health. I plead to anyone who will listen: please, think again: stop expanding Heathrow or City airports, stop the Silvertown tunnel and do not build that lorry park. Let us invest in green transport links instead.

[Caroline Nokes (in the Chair)]

I now put Members on a five-minute time limit.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate. I congratulate the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) on securing it and setting the scene so well. The contributions so far have been pertinent to the debate.

Our environmental duties are massive, and the more knowledge we have, the more it is incumbent on us to do all we can to safeguard this planet for our children. As a Christian, I am well aware that the end will be when God ordains it, but we are called to be good stewards and caretakers of this wonderful planet that has been gifted to us. Over the holidays, I had an opportunity to do some hunting and shooting over the farm with my son, granddaughter and friends—I declare an interest as a farmer—and while the fresh country air was sharp and cold, it none the less reminded me of how important what we do is. Later that night, there was a programme on TV showing India and perhaps other parts of the world where air pollution was extreme and people were having difficulty breathing, which made me not take for granted the fresh clean air that we have. That is part of the reason why I, along with my son, planted 3,500 trees on farmland about 10 years ago, and I am caretaking areas of biodiversity on my farm. I cannot save the world by myself, but I can make a small contribution, and I intend to do my best to keep our air clean and healthy.

Air quality has been very much in the news in the past few weeks, with the number of deaths in the UK due to air quality at its highest for some time. The figures are high even in Northern Ireland. UK industries account for 1% of air pollution, yet we can do more than make the equivalent of a 1% improvement in the world. It begins in our own homes and stretches out to the influence we have in this place to encourage people to make good decisions and better choices.

Just this morning, the British Vehicle Rental and Leasing Association had a drop-in event in room N in Portcullis House—Members who did not go are too late now—where it referred to the need for hybrid and electric cars. The BVRLA also outlined five policy measures that it would like to see, which include, as I am sure the Minister is well aware, tax benefits, new vehicles, charge points, which are critical, and user sentiment, because at the end of the day, the owners and users of those cars need to be convinced that they are necessary.

I caveat my remarks by saying that I firmly believe that if we want to change people’s routines, we can do so by encouragement and not enforcement. We can jail someone and find they are still not rehabilitated after their incarceration, yet when we take the time to work with people and encourage them, lives are turned around. Let us look at how we make that happen, because the secret to our future security is educating the younger generation and encouraging the older generations—I count myself in the latter category—to do what needs to be done.

The Minister will be aware that in Strangford and Portaferry we had a tidal project, which involved Queen’s University, where we tried to harness the waves. The pilot and initial investigations provided some good ideas, but we need investment for the project to go forward. There are things that we can do; we just need that wee bit of financial assistance to help to make it happen.

We are the generation, as some here will acknowledge, who had milk delivered in glass bottles, and we washed and put out the bottles for the milkman to reuse. We do not mind recycling and we are doing our best, but it must be made clear what is expected of us to do our bit. We are the generation who did not always have a car. We used bikes—we probably do not use them as much as we did in the past—took buses or went by Shanks’s pony. Walking was probably easier for us in those days, as some will understand. We do not mind doing so, but it is important to explain and encourage.

In Northern Ireland we have the Glider bus system from Dundonald right into Belfast. The idea is simple: it is park and ride, whereby people park in Newtownards or the on the edge of Dundonald and get the Glider bus straight into town. It is easier and less hassle, it gives people a bit more time to do something while on the bus, and it produces less emissions. That shows there are good schemes that we can use. The key is not lectures and browbeating, but information and encouragement. Tax breaks and perks for businesses are useful, but we need better infrastructure to encourage public transport and ensure that our young people have their independence while still being safe when travelling. We must encourage the use of car pools and shared resources.

To finish, there is much that can be done from this place, but my word of caution, from an old dog that is learning new tricks, is this. Go easy and bring us with you, and the generation who are used to hard work and innovation will not let you down.

[Caroline Nokes (in the Chair)]

The mover of the motion has indicated that he does not need time to wind up the debate, so that leaves the Front-Bench spokesmen with just over 10 minutes each.