Oral Answers to Questions

Clive Betts Excerpts

Thursday 4th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Stephenson]

The Minister responsible for trams, my hon. Friend Baroness Vere, would be happy to meet the right hon. Gentleman to discuss that and other local priorities. He will be aware that the £1 billion announced in the spending review is only one part of the transport investment that is going into the region. I hope that more good news will be announced for the West Midlands as part of the upcoming integrated rail plan.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Transport (Grant Shapps)]

Mr Speaker, you have rightly highlighted the Insulate Britain protests outside the House that are preventing Members from getting into the Chamber, which is completely unacceptable. I therefore thought it would be helpful to update the House: following my requirement that National Highways seek injunctions against the protesters, 475 injunctions have been served to protesters at their homes for contempt of court, of which 32 are due to come to court, nine of them later this month.

When it gets to the point that protests against climate change prevent Members of this House from getting here to hold Ministers to account and be heard, it is clearly counterproductive. Contempt of court can lead to unlimited fines and prison sentences. We will act through the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill to resolve the gap in the law that has led to this situation.

[Mr Betts]

Five years ago, Sheffield looked as though it was going to benefit from a whole range of levelling-up measures for rail infrastructure, but then the electrification of the midland main line was abandoned in 2017; a positive 2016 report on a new road tunnel between Sheffield and Manchester seems to have lain in the bottom of some ministerial drawer since; and the high-speed rail line between Sheffield and Manchester seems to have become an upgrade to the Hope Valley line which, however welcome, means that trains will get to the very high speed of under 60 mph. The one thing we have left is the eastern leg of High Speed 2. Will the Secretary of State now commit to that eastern leg going ahead? Or is this simply another example of Sheffield being not levelled up but, together with whole parts of the east midlands, being forgotten about and left behind?

[Grant Shapps]

I am disappointed by the hon. Gentleman’s lack of ambition. He says that only the east midlands line is left; he is wrong: there are still other upgrades to be considered, such as the midland main line and many others. I am afraid he will have to wait for the integrated rail plan, but I think he will be excited when it is delivered.

Oral Answers to Questions

Clive Betts Excerpts

Thursday 9th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Maclean]

The hon. Lady has raised an important point. The Government’s intention is to ensure that wherever people live—whether that is their own home, a terraced home without parking, or, as she says, an apartment building—they have access to overnight charging, because that is the most convenient way for people to charge. We will be setting out more details in our infrastructure strategy, which we are publishing soon, but we are looking closely at the challenges of installing charge points in car parks and blocks of flats.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

I declare an interest, as I have an electric car. Local charging is obviously important, but on Saturday I will be using my car to go from Sheffield to Plymouth to watch Sheffield Wednesday play and hopefully win. It is quite a challenge to find rapid charging points on the journey to get there and back in reasonable time. One of the concerns is that people get to a rapid charging point and it does not charge rapidly. Apparently there is a problem with the grid in many places not consistently providing the level of charge needed for these rapid chargers. Could the Minister have a look at that problem, because I think it is quite a serious one?

[Rachel Maclean]

I wish the hon. Gentleman a good journey. I hope his football team is successful. He has raised some vital issues, and I assure him that they are all ones we are addressing in our infrastructure strategy. We are also addressing reliability in our consumer experience consultation. We intend to lay legislation later this year to deal with many of the issues he has raised.

National Bus Strategy: England

Clive Betts Excerpts

Monday 15th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

I can certainly confirm that this bus strategy is very much in line with the type of thing that my hon. Friend and his residents in Ramsbottom and elsewhere want to see happen with the X41 bus. It is very important that we join all this back together, and that people can reliably get these buses in the evening, back out of towns and cities to the more outlying areas. I do not think that he will be disappointed with what he reads today.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab) [V]]

I welcome many aspects of this statement today and say to the Secretary of State that he has effectively delivered the obituary for the failed deregulation of bus services outside London. Given that there will be a local choice between enhanced partnerships and franchising, will he look at trying to remove some of the time-consuming barriers to getting that franchising that local transport authorities have to go through? Finally, when it comes to reforming the grant system, will he ensure that the money is actually paid to the local transport authorities so that it can be spent in line with local priorities?

[Grant Shapps]

Let me take that in reverse order. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that there are times when it would make a lot more sense for the money to go to the local authorities. However, for the sake of speed during this crisis, I have not wanted to add further complications, as the bus support grant has been literally a lifeline to various areas. This strategy will enable more work on the suggestions that he makes. With regard to franchising, and on his first point, we can talk about what happened in 1986, some 37 years ago, or we can talk about the future. This bus strategy and I want to talk about the future.

All-lane Running Motorways

Clive Betts Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd January 2020 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the safety of all-lane running motorways.

Last year, in June, my constituent Jason Mercer said goodbye to his wife Claire at 8 am. Fifteen minutes later, he and another motorist were dead. Jason had been involved in a minor collision on the M1 in South Yorkshire, but in March 2017 the hard shoulder on that section of motorway had been converted into a full-time running lane, so, with no emergency refuge in sight, Jason and his fellow motorist were forced to stop in a live lane to exchange details. A steep bank immediately behind the safety barrier meant there was nowhere to move off the road, and instead they were left exposed. A lorry hit one of the stationary vehicles, killing them both instantly.

The safety features promised when the motorway was converted have still not been installed. Jason is one of the growing number of victims of so-called “smart motorways” on which the flow of traffic is controlled by remotely adjustable speed limits. Specifically, Jason was killed on the all-lane running, or ALR, motorway on which the hard shoulder has been permanently removed. Tragically, Jason is not the only victim of that ill-conceived scheme. That same 16-mile section of the M1 has seen five fatalities in just 10 months. Nationally, 2018 figures show 107 deaths across the whole of our motorway system and—let me repeat—I have had five fatalities in the past 10 months, in near-identical circumstances, on 16 miles of road. I acknowledge that ALR schemes can deliver capacity improvements, but they do so at the cost of motorists’ lives.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on raising this important issue. Does she agree that that could have been avoided had police advice been listened to? In the Parliament of 2010 to 2015, I went to see the Minister’s predecessor with the South Yorkshire police, who had said, “This arrangement is not safe.” Recently, Chief Inspector Darren Starkey of the South Yorkshire police wrote to me that

“any stranded vehicle, in any live lane or carriageway on any motorway or other strategic road presents an immediate safety risk”,

but that when there is a hard shoulder, those

“risks are less than being in the live lane”.

[Sarah Champion]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point and for all his campaigning on the issue. It was not only the police but the local authorities, the other emergency services, the RAC and the AA—everyone with any common sense knew that taking away the hard shoulder was going to lead to fatalities.

Hazards presented by the removal of the hard shoulder are manifold. The hard shoulder allows stricken motorists to stop in relative safety, outside the flow of traffic. In its absence, at a minimum, there should be emergency refuges along the carriageway. Mr O’Sullivan, the chief executive of Highways England, recently revealed to the Select Committee on Transport that 38% of all breakdowns on ALR motorways took place in live lanes, not in refuges. Even having refuges, therefore, does not keep people safe.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (George Freeman)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mr Paisley. I am standing in for the Roads Minister, Baroness Vere, who will be watching the debate closely, and I will meet her afterwards. Let me congratulate and thank the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) for raising this issue. I agree that it merits a bigger debate. The participation of colleagues across the House signals the strength of feeling.

Let me start by acknowledging the tragedy, pain and trauma suffered by the families of all those who have lost their lives on our roads—especially Jason Mercer, whose family are in the Gallery, and Dev Naran—and particularly, in the context of this debate, on our smart motorways. It is no good Ministers saying that all roads are safe; people need to feel safe and be safe. We need to ensure that safety remains our No. 1 priority. We accept there is a problem here. The Secretary of State is, as we speak, putting the finishing touches on a serious package of measures to tackle it. I cannot and will not pre-empt that, but I will deal with a number of points that were raised.

I would not be doing my job if I did not start by reminding everyone that safety is our No. 1 priority. Highways England’s objective in implementing smart motorways is to ensure that they are as safe as the pre-smart motorway network, which is already the safest bit of the road network, and ultimately safer. We are committed to developing an increasingly safe road network, and I am alarmed that the safety statistics showed a slight increase last year. I take the point my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) made about drilling down into that data, which I will raise with Baroness Vere.

[Mr Betts]

What the Minister has said is interesting, but given all he has heard, does he accept that smart motorways, or all-lane running—whichever he wants to call it—are as safe as building an extra lane and having a permanent hard shoulder?

[George Freeman]

That is one of the precise questions that the Secretary of State is looking at. I do not want to pre-empt that work, but I absolutely accept the hon. Gentleman’s reason for asking that important question.

Highways England is constantly monitoring, and it has introduced a number of measures. This is ongoing work. It is not something we think is done and dusted; it is live as we speak. The truth is that, for anyone involved, one accident is one too many. I want to ensure that no one ever dies in this way again, and that the legacy of the people who have died is that that sort of accident, and the situation in which it occurred, cannot happen again. That is why the Secretary of State announced an evidence stocktake soon after taking office. He has called in all the evidence and data, and he is looking at a package of measures to deal with this issue, which will be announced imminently. It would be sensible if, following the debate, we quickly reconvened the all-party group on road safety. Perhaps we might go further and create a taskforce for all colleagues who are interested in this issue, so we can listen to their concerns and ensure that that work is fed directly in.

I hope my hon. Friends and colleagues on the Opposition Benches understand that I cannot pre-empt the Secretary of State’s announcement, but let me make one or two key points in response to those that were raised. It is true that the principal rationale for smart motorways is to increase capacity, reduce congestion and reduce pollution. There are environmental benefits to ensuring that we maximise the use of existing motorways rather than building new motorway capacity, but there are real issues about awareness, information, the positioning of refuges, rescue, vehicle monitoring, and the safety of vehicles re-entering the highway. All those issues have to be got right, and that is why I am responding in the way I am.

Smart motorways have increased capacity. Since we introduced the scheme, more than 1 billion journeys have been made over the 250-mile network of smart motorways. I do not want people to think this is a very small patch of malfunctioning motorway; it is extensive, and over the last 15 years, millions of people have driven up smart motorways.

Thomas Cook

Clive Betts Excerpts

Wednesday 25th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

My hon. Friend is right about the extraordinary work done by employees who know they have lost their job still working, even today, and by those who are uncertain about their future in many foreign and British locations. I pay tribute to them on behalf of the whole House, I am sure.

Many factors led to the collapse of Thomas Cook. Management, which has been mentioned many times, makes a large contribution, but so do other factors, including a very hot summer last year, which stopped people from going away, following the wrong business model, and the growth of the internet—problems that stretch back way before any of us in this House voted to have a referendum on Brexit.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State says we need to legislate to reform the travel industry, and we need a new Session of Parliament to do that. Will he guarantee the presence of a Bill to that effect in the Queen’s Speech?

HS2

Clive Betts Excerpts

Thursday 5th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

As the terms of reference, which I encourage right hon. and hon. Members to read, make clear, this review is wide ranging and takes all such matters into account.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

Given the delays to the southern section of the route, will the Secretary of State ask the review to consider the possibility of starting the northern sections before the southern section is finished, so that there is a degree of working overlap?

[Grant Shapps]

That is one of the things that Douglas Oakervee is looking at. Interestingly, Allan Cook’s report, which is in the Library, suggests doing phases 1 and 2a together.

Oral Answers to Questions

Clive Betts Excerpts

Thursday 18th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Jones]

First, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend and my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) for their campaigning on this issue. This is an important issue locally. Network Rail has made progress in finalising the design for the bridge and will start work as soon as possible. I will contact Network Rail to find the most up-to-date information, put pressure on it for the earliest possible completion of this project and keep my hon. Friend informed.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

Three weeks ago, I went on a parliamentary visit to the Netherlands and had a tour of the port of Rotterdam. That one port alone is recruiting over 100 new vets to carry out the necessary regulatory checks in the light of a no-deal Brexit. Does that not demonstrate the scale of the cost of a no-deal Brexit and the likely delays from the checks that will be necessary?

[Chris Grayling]

It is not the Government’s policy to pursue a no-deal Brexit. It is the Government’s policy, under current and future leadership, to pursue an agreement with the European Union. That is what we want. We would all prefer to leave with a deal with the European Union, but that has got to be the right deal.

Oral Answers to Questions

Clive Betts Excerpts

Thursday 13th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I absolutely agree with my right hon. Friend. I pay tribute to him for what he did to step up investment in the north. When I listen to the Opposition waxing about a lack of investment in the north, I simply remind them that when they were in power they let a Northern Rail franchise with no investment in it at all, whereas this Conservative Government are replacing every single train in the north with either a brand-new or a completely refurbished train.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

When I drive around Europe this summer, I will not find any two major cities less well connected than Sheffield and Manchester. A review has been done of improving the road connections between those two cities, and there is now an agreed best way forward. When will the Government activate that, so that we get an all-purpose, all-weather route between those two cities?

[Chris Grayling]

I can tell the hon. Gentleman that the concept of the tunnel, which has been much reviewed and much discussed, is on the board agenda for the next Transport for the North meeting, and we are looking forward with interest to seeing the detail of those proposals. It is clearly necessary to improve trans-Pennine links. That is why we are committed to dualling the A66 and are putting in improvements on the A69. It is why I have asked Highways England to start work on better links between east Lancashire and west Yorkshire. Quite clearly, particularly given the vulnerability of the M62 to bad weather, a second route between Manchester and Sheffield must also be a part of the future.

East Midlands Rail Franchise

Clive Betts Excerpts

Thursday 11th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport if he will make a statement on why Stagecoach has been disqualified from bidding for the east midlands rail franchise.

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

On Wednesday 10 April, it was announced that Abellio is the successful bidder to operate the east midlands rail franchise and will be responsible for delivering new trains, smart ticketing and more frequent services for passengers. Passengers in the east midlands are to get new trains, more peak-time services, reduced journey times and over £17 million of station improvements as Abellio takes over the franchise from August 2019.

Abellio will invest £600 million in trains and stations between August 2019 and 2027, while the Government continue with their £1.5 billion upgrade to the midland main line—the biggest upgrade to the line since it was completed in 1870. This is part of the Government’s £48 billion investment to modernise our railways over the next five years.

As we informed the House in yesterday’s written statement, Abellio was awarded the contract “following rigorous competition.” It was a fair, open competition and Abellio provided the best bid, in which it demonstrated that it will not only meet but exceed the Department’s specifications.

Stagecoach chose to put in a non-compliant bid, which resulted in its disqualification, in line with the terms of the published invitation to tender. That said, Stagecoach has played an important role in our railways, and we hope it will continue to do so after the conclusion of the rail review. However, it is entirely for Stagecoach and its bidding partners to explain why it decided to ignore established rules by rejecting the commercial terms on offer.

[Mr Betts]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for allowing this urgent question.

The Minister did not really answer the question. Abellio has been awarded the contract as the best bidder, but the bid of the existing franchisee was not even allowed. Generally, Stagecoach has performed reasonably well on the contract, so will he explain when the requirement was first introduced that a bidder has to cover pension costs? Is this the first franchise for which the requirement has been introduced? Why was it applied?

How much, in total, are the Government trying to cover in costs through the franchising process? When were the bidders notified of the requirement—was it at the beginning of the process?—and why was no one else told about it? Are any other companies refusing to cover such costs? Are any other franchises affected? If they are, what will be the effect on competition within the franchising system? What would happen to future competitions and to the costs that the Government seek to cover if all companies refused to cover those costs?

Finally, on the bid that has been accepted, do these hybrid trains actually exist now? When will they be introduced? What will the Government do if existing rolling stock is not disability-compliant in 2020? The Government have promised improvements to the timetable, but can we be assured that, at the beginning of the new franchise, journey times will be at least as good, and at least as short, as they were before the botched timetable changes of last year?

[Andrew Jones]

There are a lot of questions there. First, Stagecoach has acknowledged to the Department that it had bid non-compliantly. We have received offers from other bidders in all competitions that are fully compliant in providing the required pension arrangements for railway workers so, to answer the hon. Gentleman’s question on whether this means the bid process is failing and others are refusing, clearly they are not because we have a compliant bid that won in good form.

Stagecoach is an experienced bidder and fully aware of the franchise competition rules, so it is regrettable that it submitted a non-compliant bid that breached the established rules. In doing so, Stagecoach is responsible for its own disqualification. Bidders were invited to bid on the basis of a pension deficit recovery mechanism. They knew that at the very start of the process[Official Report, 25 April 2019, Vol. 658, c. 8MC.]. Stagecoach did not accept it and made some amendments as it submitted the bid. On what would happen if all companies refuse, clearly, by definition, they are not all refusing, so the question does not apply.

We will see an entirely new fleet of trains—a full replacement fleet—come into service. Inter-city services will receive new bi-mode trains, and regional services will receive new diesel trains. The express fleet, which is the Corby-Bedford-London service, will receive new electric trains that offer significantly enhanced environmental improvements.

What is interesting in this franchise is that we will see the first trial of a hydrogen-powered train. [Hon. Members: “When?”] In terms of timing, we will see the new trains coming into service in a phased way. We hope to see the first trains coming in next year, and so on over the next three years.

The bidding process was conducted in a fair and consistent way, applying the rules of engagement equally to all bidders. We have provided feedback to those who have not been successful. The reasons are always commercially confidential. Losing bidders may publicise them if they wish, but we will not do that because they are commercially confidential. The key thing that we are seeing here is a franchise awarded in the typical way that franchises are awarded in our rail industry, delivering passenger benefits.

Oral Answers to Questions

Clive Betts Excerpts

Thursday 21st March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Jones]

I recognise the frustration that people have experienced in parts of our network, but just bringing the franchise to an end could cause further and unnecessary disruption for passengers and therefore be an inappropriate course of action. The question should be how we can improve our network, and that is the action that we are taking. We are seeing this coming through in performance improvements.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

Poor performance is not just down to the operating companies. Peak-time trains between Sheffield and London are running slower than they were a year ago because of the botched timetable changes that the Department brought in. When is the Minister going to reverse those changes so that the journey times for peak-time trains between Sheffield and London can get back to being less than two hours, as they were a year ago?

[Andrew Jones]

The hon. Gentleman makes a point about Sheffield, so I will highlight the amount of work happening on the midland main line to improve journey times and passenger experiences up and down the network, including Sheffield.