Oral Answers to Questions

George Freeman Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

2. What recent discussions he has had with the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency on industrial action by its staff.

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

May I say, Mr Speaker, what a pleasure it is to be back under your chairmanship in this new role as Minister of State for the future of transport?

On 7 October, the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency entered into talks with the Public and Commercial Services Union. They have met three times. The DVSA is expecting to continue the talks, which are supported by ACAS, at the start of November.

[Alex Norris]

On 30 August, I met DVSA employees in Nottingham who are taking industrial action, as they want to work in an environment free from bullying and where they are listened to and valued. My hon. Friends the Members for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) and for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) and I wrote to Baroness Vere of Norbiton requesting a meeting to make these representations. She declined. Will the Minister or the Secretary of State take that meeting instead, so that they can hear important feedback from critical members of staff?

[George Freeman]

For the benefit of the House, I should say we are talking about the modernised employment contract for DVSA staff. This is a matter between the DVSA and staff. The impact will be two hours extra a week for training, which increases the working hours from 35 to 37. Lunch breaks are being protected. We very much hope that the union returns to the negotiations with the DVSA. I might perhaps gently ask the Labour party, which is reliant on the unions, to exercise its good influence on behalf of the travelling public.

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[Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Con)]

10. What plans his Department has to construct new transport infra- structure to serve growing towns on the outskirts of London.

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

Transport in the Greater London area is devolved to the Mayor and delivered on his behalf by TfL. The Department continues to fund investment in major transport projects benefiting London, such as Crossrail and the Thameslink upgrade. The Department is also working with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to plan transport infrastructure as part of sustainable house building, particularly through the housing infrastructure fund and the garden communities programme.

[Andrew Rosindell]

I thank the Minister for his response, but has he looked into the possibility of expanding his investment programme to the Gallows Corner area of my constituency—a major hub from Essex into London? Its 50-year-old structure now needs to be replaced. Is it not time that the Government stepped in to make sure that this happens?

[George Freeman]

I am delighted to confirm that we are indeed stepping in. My hon. Friend is a dogged advocate of the needs of Romford and, along with his companion Buster, has done more than anyone to put this subject on the map. I know that as well as Brexit he wants “Hexit”—he wants control of Havering taken back into Essex. However, I can confirm that we are looking at this scheme with TfL to develop a series of major structural renewals at Gallows Corner, as announced by the Government in October 2018.

[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

I am pleased that last week, TfL launched its new consultation on the Bakerloo line extension. Will the Minister commit to exploring funding options for that scheme with HM Treasury and TfL?

[George Freeman]

Those conversations are ongoing, and I am aware that the hon. Lady met the rail Minister last week.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Jackie Doyle-Price (Thurrock) (Con)]

Plans to deliver 3,000 new homes in Purfleet in my constituency have ground to a halt following Highways England’s decision to reject any planning application for more than 250 houses due to pressure on the A13. I find it difficult to explain to my constituents why Highways England is putting a new motorway through Thurrock while preventing us from planning and delivering new homes. Will the Minister meet me to discuss the matter?

[George Freeman]

Yes, I would be delighted to meet my hon. Friend. She will be pleased to know that the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government and the Department for Transport are working on the much closer integration of housing and transport.

[Damian Green (Ashford) (Con)]

High Speed 1 is one of the most successful pieces of infrastructure at enabling commuting into London. Indeed, it is so successful and reliable that many services, particularly at peak hours, are massively overcrowded. In the Department’s radical look at the future of the rail network, will Ministers consider the provision of extra rolling stock on HS1, so that my constituents in Ashford and people in other places along the lines can have more comfortable journeys to and from work?

[George Freeman]

My right hon. Friend makes a typically excellent point, and I am delighted to confirm that the rail Minister met the relevant decision makers yesterday to discuss that proposal.

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

11. Whether he plans to review the Road Vehicles Lighting Regulations 1989.

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

On 23 July 2019, the Government announced a review of the available evidence to see whether a more flexible approach to the regulations permitting the use of red flashing lights by road recovery operators may be appropriate. The Department is in the process of commissioning the study, and a decision to review the regulations will be taken once the study has reported.

[Tracey Crouch]

I am grateful for that response. The partner of my constituent Sam was killed while recovering a vehicle on the M25. Since then, she and others have been campaigning for the roadside recovery industry to be able to use red lights, rather than amber, during recoveries. The police and others have now dropped their objections, and the science shows a difference in reactions to amber light and red light, so will the Minister now give the green light to the change?

[George Freeman]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on her campaign, and the whole House sends its condolences to her constituent. Our motorways are actually the safest roads, but she raises an important point. If the public feel that the use of red lights will help them feel safer, we will be minded, after looking at the evidence, to approve the change.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

My constituent Jason Mercer is dead because of the Government’s ill-conceived all-lane-running scheme on the M1. Will the Minister please meet me and Claire Mercer, Jason’s widow, to discuss the safety implications of the scheme and the stopping of next year’s roll-out?

[George Freeman]

Yes, I would be delighted to meet the hon. Lady, as will the Roads Minister, Baroness Vere. I am also delighted to confirm that the Secretary of State will be announcing a short review so that we can deal with that problem quickly.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Many of my constituents have told me about car headlights that seem undipped or exceptionally bright. This is a slightly different issue from the one we are discussing, but will there be regulations to ensure that headlights do not have an impact upon vehicles coming the other way? These lights can cause accidents.

[George Freeman]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. We are going to take a quick look at the evidence and introduce a framework to ensure that people are safe on the edges of our motorways and that drivers know that the right regulations have been put in place for them.

[Craig Tracey (North Warwickshire) (Con)]

13. What steps he is taking to ensure that all regions have sufficient transport infrastructure to support economic growth.

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

17. What steps he is taking to ensure that all regions have sufficient transport infrastructure to support economic growth.

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

Since 2015, we have doubled our capital investment in the transport system, and we are investing over £72 billion in transport infrastructure in the five years to 2020-21. The Prime Minister has set out his commitment to enhancing and levelling up connectivity across the country, and we are investing an average of £248 per person in the north, compared with £236 per person in the south.

[Craig Tracey]

One of the main projects that has been identified as essential for future economic growth in the midlands is the A5 upgrade in north Warwickshire. Will the Minister commit to working with me, the A5 partnership and Midlands Connect to help deliver these vital improvements?

[George Freeman]

Yes. My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, and we are in discussions right now on that important golden triangle. We will shortly be announcing our plans for the A5 in the road investment strategy.

[Fiona Bruce]

Middlewich is clearly on the Government’s map for both road and rail investment, with £50 million for a bypass and funding for the business case for reopening the railway station. Will the Minister assure me that both projects are continuing at pace, and will he meet me to discuss it?

[George Freeman]

Yes, I am delighted to reassure my hon. Friend that we will make sure the pace is kept up and that the change in political control does not slow it down. We will make a decision on the final funding once a business case has been properly considered.

On the reinstatement of passenger rail services via Middlewich, my officials are now working with local partners on the development of that business case, which we will consider with Transport for the North.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

The A64, which runs through my constituency and the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr Goodwill), is desperately in need of dualling. Will the Minister answer the calls of all MPs, businesses, local authorities, residents and hundreds of thousands of tourists and commit to this very important project?

[George Freeman]

My hon. Friend has been a tireless campaigner for the A64, and I can assure him that his message, both today and in his various correspondence and meetings, has been heard loud and clear. We will shortly be announcing the second road investment strategy, as promised in the first. We have plans for the A64, so I urge him just to wait for a few weeks and months.

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

For economic growth to be properly supported, transport infrastructure needs to be properly accessible, so will the Minister and the Government commit to making sure that every local railway station, such as Lawrence Hill and Stapleton Road in my constituency, is fully accessible?

[George Freeman]

The hon. Lady makes an excellent point—I have a railway station in my constituency that is in desperate need of disability access—and that is why we have launched the Access for All programme. We will be looking to make sure that all those stations with the most urgent access challenges are sorted in the right order.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

Buses are a very important part of transport infrastructure, and my constituents will benefit enormously from the announcement by the metro Mayor of the Liverpool city region, Steve Rotheram, of a new metrocard. When will we improve bus service integration across the country by ensuring that we have a single smartcard, not different cards in different parts of the country?

[George Freeman]

I note the omission of thanks for the major package of investment in bus infrastructure, and I simply make the point that the Mayor has those powers. I am leading the Department’s work on smart ticketing, and we are keen to see Transport for the North and the Mayor lead that programme so people in that area can have integrated ticketing.

[Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)]

I am sure the Minister shares my frustration that rail passengers in the north will have to continue enduring the use of Pacer trains well into 2020, despite assurances from Northern that they would be taken out of service by the end of this year. Does he believe that passengers should be compensated as a result?

[George Freeman]

The Department shares the disappointment that the new rolling stock has been delayed. Pacer trains are not fit for purpose for the 21st century. Northern retired the first of its 102 Pacers in August, and it plans to remove two thirds by December 2019. Northern advises that, subject to receiving appropriate dispensation, up to 34 Pacers will remain in the fleet, but I assure the hon. Gentleman that we are determined to make sure the fleet is properly modernised.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Labour knows the true value of connecting towns and cities across the north. Our integrated transport plan will invest in public transport, in public ownership, to work for the passengers not the shareholders. We will start by investing £39 billion in the whole Crossrail for the north project. How much will the Minister commit to the project today—only £15 billion?

[George Freeman]

I think the nation will be interested to hear the Opposition Front Bench team announcing major plans for investment, given that their economic plans will see a massive loss of investment in this country and massive economic damage. We can fund good transport infrastructure and a good NHS only when we have economic growth. The truth is that this Government are proceeding with the biggest investment package in road, rail and infrastructure in this country since the Victorians—£72 billion—and we are spending more per head on passengers in the north than in the south. This Government have the interests of the north at their heart.

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[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

T9.   The permanent closure of the Army and Navy flyover has created a transport emergency across Chelmsford and mid-Essex. Can the Minister confirm that officials from the Department for Transport are working at pace with Essex County Council and focusing every effort on developing, funding and delivering a long-term solution to this junction?

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

I am delighted to say that the noble Baroness Vere who deals with these issues and I met yesterday, and we both commend my hon. Friend for her leadership on this issue. This has been a very serious emergency situation, causing huge congestion in her part of the world, and we are determined to ensure that we get the solution right. That means not necessarily rebuilding what was there before, but getting a proper state-of-the-art solution.

[Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)]

T7. At Highways England, a Government-owned company of which the Secretary of State is the sole shareholder, over 60 executives—mostly men—now enjoy six-figure salaries, while the vast majority of staff have been told to expect their pay increases to remain capped at 1% until 2025. When will the new shareholder be challenging company directors to address these pay disparities?

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[Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)]

After a widely supported and successful campaign against a relief road in Harrogate, the transport authority is now looking at a package of sustainable measures to take transport forward in the area. What support will the Government provide to North Yorkshire County Council and other such councils developing sustainable transport packages?

[George Freeman]

My hon. Friend raises an excellent point. We are currently in the midst of talking to the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government about a much more fundamental integration of housing and transport through the housing infrastructure fund. I will happily meet my hon. Friend to talk this through to make sure that it works for local places so that housing comes with proper transport.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

Further to the Secretary of State’s earlier comments on the intention to carry out a review of the safety of smart motorways and all-lane running, he will know that the Transport Committee questioned Highways England on this yesterday. Is that review being carried out in the Department or by someone independent? I would be grateful if he clarified that.

Transport: North East Bedfordshire

George Freeman Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2019 Westminster Hall

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

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mr Gray. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) on securing the debate. May I say how nice it is to have the chance to respond to him, knowing that he is one of the most assiduous representatives of his constituency and is highly respected across the parties? It is a shame that no Opposition Members are present.

I am pleased to respond to the debate as the new Minister for the future of transport, with a new mission from the Prime Minister to focus on the challenges of disconnection, decarbonisation and digitalisation, and bring a new urgency to the Department’s focus on place-based solutions that put the people and places we serve before the convenience of infrastructure providers. As my right hon. Friend said, we need to ensure that services are working for the people who rely on them and are ultimately paying the bills.

As we all know, well-planned transport infrastructure is critical to the health, wealth and wellbeing of our communities. Bedfordshire is an historic county and an important one in strategic transport terms, with key roads such as the A1, the A5 and the M1 running through it, along with a number of key rail routes; it is also home to Luton’s international airport. Across the transport modes, the Government are making several key investments to help to drive sustainable economic growth. Before I come to them, however, let me deal with my right hon. Friend’s specific points.

On rail, I absolutely understand the concerns that have been raised. I would like to offer some explanation for the performance issues that are affecting my right hon. Friend’s constituents. I know that the railway stations in the towns of Sandy, Biggleswade and Arlesey are vital pieces of public infrastructure. Whether people use rail services to commute to work, to visit family or for any other reason, it is crucial that they can rely on receiving a service that is reliable and frequent. That is why, since joining the Department for Transport, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, my other ministerial colleagues and I have made the bread-and-butter issue of the reliability of rail services our No.1 priority.

Let me be very blunt: recent performance on the Great Northern line has not been good enough. Over the past year, we have seen 8% of services on average being cancelled or delayed by 30 minutes or more. That figure is a lot worse than that for the vast majority of other train-operating companies, and the situation has been exacerbated in recent weeks by a series of significant infrastructure issues, including issues with overhead wires, track failures, falling trees and a broken-down train on the key Thameslink route near Blackfriars last week.

I absolutely understand the frustration that passengers must feel when these issues arise; as a rail user, I share it, as does the Secretary of State. That is why he recently met the chief executives of GTR and Network Rail to make it clear to them that improving the reliability of services in this area is vital. Although this does not excuse poor performance, I am pleased to note that GTR held an event at St Pancras last night, allowing passengers to speak directly with the company management, and I will put on the record here that I look forward to hearing the outcome of that meeting.

Notwithstanding those incidents and the urgent need for them to be tackled, I do think that we are seeing some positive signs more generally on the franchise. I know that many of my right hon. Friend’s constituents use the Thameslink service from Bedford, where we have seen significant improvements generally to performance over recent years. Over the past 12 months, about 85% of Thameslink services arrived within five minutes of the schedule. The year before, the percentage was 83% and the year before that it was 79%, so the service is getting better. However, I acknowledge that incidents such as the impact of the May 2018 fiasco and the August power cuts have impacted passenger trust, and we have to sort out this situation to restore that trust.

My right hon. Friend mentioned stop-skipping, and it is without a doubt hugely frustrating for passengers to see the train that they were supposed to board go past without stopping, or for the train that they are on to go past the station at which they had planned to get off. For this reason, the decision to miss out a call is not one that operators should take lightly; it should not be routine.

Skipping stations is one method that operators can use to allow the rail network to recover from disruption. Operational staff take the decision to miss out a stop by balancing the impact on those passengers who are directly affected against the wider impact of allowing the service to continue. Skipping stops helps operators to avoid the knock-on impact that delayed services can have on other services, but if it is not managed proactively, delays can spread quickly across the network and affect hundreds more passengers. There is sometimes a misconception that operators take the decision to miss out stops to manipulate their performance scores. That is not, and absolutely should not be, the case. Any service that misses out a stop is counted as a part-cancellation for the purposes of the performance benchmark that the Department uses to hold operators to account. If train companies exceed that benchmark, they will be subject to financial penalties. Personally, I would like to see more of that money going to the passengers who are affected, but that debate is for another day.

What is absolutely crucial in these situations is the attention that is paid to the poor passengers whose journeys have been disrupted, and communication is vital. We should not have situations where, as my right hon. Friend highlighted, passengers are stuck for long periods with no information about the options to complete their journey. Part of my portfolio is dealing with disconnection, and that is an example of disconnection between the train-operating company and its passengers, who have paid for a service, and one that is completely unacceptable, particularly in a digital age, when communication should be so much easier. I completely understand the frustration of passengers about such situations and I continue to press the rail industry to improve their processes, to make sure that we get this right, and I will pick it up following this debate.

Going forward, and notwithstanding those concerns, we should also speak about some of the positive things that we are seeing on the railways in my right hon. Friend’s area. The Thameslink service from Sandy, Arlesey and Biggleswade, which was introduced last year, now provides weekday passengers with two direct trains per hour to the heart of London. I am pleased that, from December onwards, the current Saturday service to King’s Cross will transfer to this route, providing passengers with a much wider range of direct destinations.

Those constituents of my right hon. Friend who use Bedford station will obviously see service improvements. From December 2020, two East Midlands Railway services per hour will call at all stations between Corby and London St Pancras, providing a big capacity uplift. This, combined with the increased capacity of trains serving the London commuter route, will result in a significant increase in the number of seats, particularly during peak periods, and should release capacity on inter-city services, which will also improve access to and from Luton airport.

Furthermore, I know that my right hon. Friend campaigned passionately for Biggleswade station to receive Access for All funding. Earlier this year, Biggleswade was confirmed as a successful applicant and I congratulate him personally on his leadership in that campaign. Improving accessibility to our railway network is something that both he and I care passionately about. I understand that the plans for Biggleswade are at an early stage, but when the scheme is delivered it will provide an accessible route into the station and between the platforms.

I am sure that my right hon. Friend warmly welcomed the recent housing infrastructure fund award of nearly £70 million for the transformational growth in Biggleswade project, something that he has championed. The funding will provide a new transport interchange at the train station and a replacement bridge over the east coast main line. This is an excellent example—dare I say it, decades late but none the less excellent—of Government funding for transport infrastructure in North East Bedfordshire, which has the potential to help to deliver up to 3,000 new homes. In addition, GTR is also delivering a £15 million passenger benefit fund, which will deliver £80,000 of improvements at Arlesey, Sandy and Biggleswade stations respectively, as well as at Bedford station.

I am conscious of the time, so I will turn now to the strategic road network. We absolutely recognise the importance of the A1 and its impact on my right hon. Friend’s constituents. That is why, as part of the first road investment strategy, we committed to examining the case for improvements to the A1 between the M25 and Peterborough. Anyone who has driven on that road, as I have, knows the problems on it. Following an initial study, our focus has been on the sections between junctions 10 and 14, where we recognise that the challenges on the route are most acute. Initial work has shown that improvements—including some new alignment, or bypassing—would offer poor value for money on current metrics.

Substantial future local growth, which is coming, could and should change that assessment. Therefore, we expect there will be opportunities to re-examine the case for potential improvements to this section, particularly as proposals for the Oxford-to-Cambridge arc, which I am responsible for, are developed. In the meantime, however, we understand that local partners are taking forward some study work to look at the feasibility of improvements to the A1 in the short term. In addition, in February we also announced a preferred route for the A428 Black Cat to Caxton Gibbet scheme. As my right hon. Friend knows, this is a new dual carriageway link between the junction of the A1 and A421, and between the junction of the A428 and A1198.

My right hon. Friend raised the important issue of speed cameras on the A1, and I can reassure him that both the Department and Highways England take the issue of speeding very seriously. I share his disappointment that it was not possible to deliver the previous scheme. I have checked with and am chasing Highways England to ensure that it investigates the possibility of a camera system on this section of the A1, explains to me why the costs have spiralled as they have, and makes sure that it looks seriously to see whether such a camera system is possible. I think that it must be possible to find a way to do it and I will raise this issue with Highways England again following this debate.

I will also raise the issue of congestion on the local road network. My right hon. Friend and I both take congestion very seriously. We do not want to see strategic road work driving up congestion in neighbouring towns and villages, which is why we have made a number of investments for local transport infrastructure projects within wider Bedfordshire. These include providing £2.5 million towards a new Bedford western bypass and £11 million towards the regeneration of Bedford town centre. We are also providing funding towards the A421 dualling scheme that is being led by Central Bedfordshire Council. That is a £22 million investment, which will ease congestion from Fen Farm up to junction 13 of the M1. I understand that Central Bedfordshire Council is also taking forward proposals for a link between the M1 and the A6, with funding from the local growth fund.

Future funding for major transport infrastructure is absolutely key to the Government’s new emphasis on integrating housing and transport, as recent statements by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government have made clear. Crucial to that in the south of England is the east-west corridor, which, as I have said, I am now responsible for. It will provide better east-west connectivity across the arc, including in North East Bedfordshire. I will shortly be signing off on the rail routing decision, and I will also push to make sure that, as we build that line, we also consider strategic ways to capture land value and ensure that we are putting money into transport infrastructure, including the strategic roads, so that we have a genuinely integrated approach to road, rail and housing.

I hope that I can reassure my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire that considerable investment is being made in transport infrastructure in his area as part of this Government’s major infrastructure programme. I absolutely hear him on the issues with the railway line, which we are actively pursuing. He made a very good point about rail staffing, which I will pick up on following this debate, and he also made good points on stop-skipping and on speed cameras on the A1.

[Alistair Burt]

I think we have just 30 seconds left, so I am very grateful to the Minister for giving way. I thank him very much for his responses. However, because we have heard many of these responses before, particularly from Highways England—responses about things that will happen, only for everything to get held up because of decisions made elsewhere—can he make sure this time that some of these improvements are made? If they are not made and we have to keep waiting for others’ decisions, once again nothing will happen.

[George Freeman]

I am delighted to give my right hon. Friend that reassurance. This is my first appearance in Westminster Hall in this capacity and I look forward to picking up on the issues that he has raised. If we cannot show our constituents that we are putting people and place before the convenience of providers, we will not carry their trust with us. This strategic junction in the UK network—A1, east-west, rail and road—is vital and I will happily give him that undertaking.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered transport infrastructure in North East Bedfordshire.

Taxi and Private Hire Licensing Reform

George Freeman Excerpts

Thursday 3rd October 2019 Commons Chamber

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

It is a great pleasure and privilege to open the batting in my new role as Minister for the future of transport with you in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker, as umpire, even if not before a packed Chamber—I am more of a night watchman covering for the Minister for taxi regulation.

I thank the hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) for his kind words, and I congratulate him on his assiduous pursuit of this issue in his time in the House. I know how strongly he feels and how widely he is respected across the House for his work, particularly through his chairmanship of the all-party group on taxis, of which you, Madam Deputy Speaker, are also a supporter. I know that you have taken a close interest in the issue.

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on bringing this debate at the perfect time, as the Government are thinking about their legislative programme. I am particularly delighted to be responding on behalf of my noble Friend the taxis Minister and in my capacity as Minister for the future of transport—a new role at the Department for Transport—responsible for using our research and development budget, procurement and regulation to drive decarbonisation and digitalisation and to tackle disconnection in the Department.

As this debate and the hon. Gentleman’s work have shown, the 360,000 licensed taxi and private hire drivers in England play an important role in our transport system, meeting those journey needs that mass transit does not. They help people to reach shops and vital services and they get people home safely at night. As he and others highlighted and attested, they often offer those services to communities free of charge—gratis.

Taxis and private hire vehicles provide a particularly important service for disabled passengers, supporting their independence, allowing them to get to work, shop and visit friends and family—things that most of us are lucky enough to be able to do without a second thought. We know that disabled passengers make twice as many taxi and private hire journeys as non-disabled passengers. For those reasons and many others, the Government want the sector to thrive so that it can continue to meet the public’s needs and expectations.

There is clearly a problem. We agree with the comments made tonight and those made elsewhere in the House that the legislation that governs the taxi and private hire vehicles sector needs reform. That has been driven by a series of issues: the pace of innovation in mobility; the out-of-date nature of some of the legislation; the urgency of the decarbonisation, digitalisation and automation revolutions; the safety of passengers; and the need to ensure accessibility for those who suffer from disabilities.

[Mr Lord]

Woking has introduced some class-beating emissions standards for vehicles. I am sure I am not alone in hoping the Minister might give some comfort to other towns and cities that they will also be able to have clean air from their taxis in the years ahead.

[George Freeman]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. I will touch on that later. Part of my work on the future mobility zones is to drive the power of future mobility to help support clean air.

The use of apps to book vehicles is increasingly popular with passengers and this, perhaps more than any other factor, has thrown into sharp focus the fact that legislation drafted in the 20th century for private hire vehicles, let alone Victorian taxi legislation, has not kept pace with technological change and progress in the sector. As with other forms of licensing, the sector is licensed at a very local level, with 284 licensing authorities in England setting the standards they feel appropriate for their area. Unlike other forms of licensing, however, those that are licensed are by the very nature of the trade mobile and so will occasionally operate outside the area that granted the licence.

The increased use of technology has also added to the complexity by making it far easier to book a private hire vehicle, thereby fuelling an increase in the number of licensed vehicles across England in recent years. Numbers are up by more than 58% since 2005. This growth has been driven primarily by an increase in private hire vehicles, which today make up over three quarters of the total. The sector is clearly providing a service that passengers value, but the level of this increase does raise serious issues.

Let me now say a word about what the Government have done, and what we will do. We have recognised the issues relating to the regulation of the sector. As the hon. Gentleman said, the previous Minister of State convened the task and finish group on taxi and PHV licensing. I echo the thanks of others for the work done by the members of the group, particularly its chair, Professor Mohammed Abdel-Haq, who is with us this evening. The group considered submissions, and took oral evidence, from a wide range of stakeholders over a number of months.

Professor Abdel-Haq managed to draw out a commendable amount of consensus among group members, but the report also includes annexed contributions from individual group members, which identify the often complex areas of disagreement. A notable example is the question of what approach should be taken in tackling the issue of cross-border or out-of-area working. As I have said, this trade is mobile, and authorities do not have complete control over the drivers and vehicles that operate in their areas, which means that authorities with higher licensing requirements have concerns about the potential migration of their private hire vehicles to other authorities.

The Government welcomed the report in their response earlier this year, and made a commitment to legislate on a number of key matters: national minimum standards, national enforcement powers and a national licensing database. I believe that, taken together, those measures would enable passengers—wherever and whoever they might be—to know that their driver had passed a nationally agreed safety standard, and was working with robust oversight.

In the meantime, the Department is making full use of the tools that are currently available to shape and influence, doing what it can to support licensing authorities in the use of their extensive existing powers. In particular, passenger safety remains in the forefront of our minds. I know that many licensing authorities have learnt lessons from some of the previous licensing failures mentioned by the hon. Gentleman: Rotherham, Rossendale and Southampton—to name but a few—have reviewed their licensing functions, with a focus on robust safety measures. However, we must ensure that those lessons are clearly and strongly disseminated across the country, and that all licensing authorities have that focus.

Earlier this year, the Government consulted on draft statutory guidance for local authorities in England and Wales, describing their view on how taxi and PHV licensing powers should be used to safeguard children and vulnerable adults. The draft was the subject of extensive engagement, including a review by the task and finish group. We received more than 500 responses, very largely in support of the proposed measures, but also making valuable suggestions for improvement. Consultation serves an important purpose in securing wide and expert input, and that will be reflected in the final version of the guidance, which I am delighted to confirm will be issued very shortly. Licensing authorities will be required by law to have due regard to the guidance in formulating and implementing their licensing policies, and the Department will monitor its use and impact.

Baroness Vere, the Minister responsible for taxi and private hire vehicles, and I, as Minister for the future of transport, are well seized of the potential for technological innovation in transport to change the sector and fuel demand, and the likelihood that it will continue to blur the lines between different modes and challenge existing regulatory structures. As the Government said earlier this year in our response to the task and finish group report, in our work on the future of mobility we will consider how we can support new technology and innovation through regulatory frameworks. I am delighted to have this opportunity to announce to the House that I will shortly be launching a very wide consultation on the future of mobility, which will look into how existing and future transport systems can interact. In the long term, as part of our future of mobility review, we will consider how to introduce a regulatory framework which recognises the changes that the sector has undergone and can adapt to innovation.

I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman is meeting the taxis Minister shortly to discuss these issues, and that, as I have said, he has raised them at a time when the Government are pulling together their final plans for the Queen’s Speech; it has been announced that it will take place on 14 October. I look forward to working with the hon. Gentleman in any future discussions.

Question put and agreed to.

Airports National Policy Statement

George Freeman Excerpts

Tuesday 5th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

The important thing to say is that the reservation of slots for our regional airports is not a time-limited thing; it is a permanent feature. We would not countenance putting in place a legal mechanism that could be eroded away over time. That is what has happened in recent times: regional connections to Heathrow have diminished in number, and regional routes have been replaced by long-haul routes, but I can give an absolutely categorical assurance to the House that the legal mechanism that will be put in place will prevent that from happening again.

[George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)]

I congratulate Ministers on finally making a tough decision that puts the national interest, prosperity and business confidence ahead of politics—an approach that I hope will apply in our other big decisions. I echo the views of the former Secretaries of State, my right hon. Friends the Members for Derbyshire Dales (Sir Patrick McLoughlin) and for Putney (Justine Greening), on the importance of cost control. Does the Secretary of State agree that the Heathrow hub proposal, which would extend over the M25 and be cheaper, quieter, quicker and less environmentally damaging, has much to commend it, both at Heathrow, where it was rejected by shareholders who perversely will make more money from a more expensive scheme, as well as at other airports around the country? Would he encourage such a proposal for other airports?

[Chris Grayling]

A lot of innovation went into the Heathrow hub proposal, and we considered it very carefully when we reached our initial recommendation. There were a number of drawbacks to it. For example, it would give much less respite for people around the airport by operating in the way that was proposed. However, I have no doubt that its promoters, who are smart people and who have developed some innovative ideas, will be using those ideas to encourage change in other places around the world and hopefully building an international business for themselves.

A47

George Freeman Excerpts

Wednesday 14th May 2014 Westminster Hall

[George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies, and to follow my hon. Friends. It is a pleasure to be here today with colleagues from across the whole route—from Suffolk on the coast right across to Peterborough. The A47 is a key economic route of strategic national priority, spanning three counties—an economy artery into the heart of the eastern region. I hope that the strength of that case comes across this morning.

I want to acknowledge that this is the culmination of a very long campaign. I am something of a young whippersnapper joining it. It has been going on for many years. Senior colleagues have been on the case for a very long time. On behalf of colleagues, I want to express our thanks to the Minister and to his predecessor. We have had strong support in the past three years. Successive Roads Ministers have come to visit the area. The Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer have come and expressed support, and we want to support the work that the Department is doing on the strategic, whole-route basis of looking at roads and their strategic economic priority. It is something of a scandal that this route was never even highlighted by the old regional development agency as a key economic route. I hope that that case is clearly heard.

I want to highlight three key arguments. The region is an economic powerhouse in driving the rebalanced economy, but the A47 is a blocked artery to the region. I want to make a special case for the Cambridge-Norwich corridor and the A47-A11 junction, which my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich South (Simon Wright) has talked about and which is a potential congestion hotspot that will hold back our region. I also want to touch on the safety aspects, not least in the Dereham to Swaffham section in my constituency.

The Government have rightly placed a lot of emphasis on rebalancing our economy to get us out of the appalling debt legacy that we have faced. As colleagues have mentioned, East Anglia is second only to the City of London as a net contributor to the Treasury. The truth is that we have been woefully ignored over successive decades when it comes to investment in infrastructure. We have been treated as a rural backwater for commuters, pensioners and farmers rather than as an economic powerhouse. In fact, however, if we look at offshore energy, biomedical, clean tech, engineering, food and agriculture, and tourism, we see that the region has so much more to give, but it is being held back.

The Government’s planned investment in rail, road and broadband has the potential to unlock something really significant: a rural renaissance and a new model of growth. No longer will millions of people be condemned to stand like cattle in over-filled trains, or to sit behind the steering wheels of cars on congested roads; they will be able to be productive closer to home in converted farm buildings, in villages to which life has returned and in thriving towns. Not only will the economy grow but people will enjoy a better quality of life. That is why I have talked about the region as a new California. With such investment and with the Minister’s support for the key route of the A47, I believe that we can do more than simply deliver growth; we can deliver sustainable growth for the good of future generations. The housing demand in the region is testament to that quality of life. In my constituency, Wymondham and Attleborough are both getting thousands of new homes, as is Norwich. There are tens of thousands of new homes coming into the area, which will increase pressure on the A47.

I want to touch on the unique case of our science and innovation economy. The Government have rightly put a new emphasis on the new economy and on laying the foundations for long-term economic growth. Norwich and Norfolk are seen as rural economies, but we have the Formula 1 cluster, which includes the Lotus research and development headquarters in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon) and the Hethel engineering centre, the home of Caterham Cars. As we have heard, 2,500 research scientists are based at the Norwich research park, which is Europe’s biggest integrated life science cluster. It is only 40 miles down the road from Cambridge, and the Cambridge-Norwich innovation corridor is becoming increasingly nationally recognised. Last year with Lord Sainsbury, the chancellor of Cambridge university and a major investor in science innovation in Norwich and Cambridge, I launched the Norwich-Cambridge research partnership. The Government last year launched an agritech strategy for 21st century agricultural technology, and investment is flowing into the NRP and down the Norwich-Cambridge corridor as a result.

We have plans for an international food hub on the A47 just outside Norwich, which will link our agricultural college, the city college and our agricultural community to science on the research park and to our food and tourism industries. Yesterday, I met the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, which has major investments going into an enterprise hub and a new food and medicine institute. One of the most exciting things happening in the life sciences is the merger of food and medicine to create a new generation of functional foods known as nutraceuticals. Norwich and the Norwich research park leads Cambridge in that field; in fact, it is a global centre of excellence. If we can plug it into the regional economy and to Cambridge, and if we can plug that innovation corridor into our wider economy, in the next 20 or 30 years we will be able to do for that sector what Cambridge has done for medicine. That is a national—nay, international—priority, and the A47 is holding it back. If we are not careful, the junction of the A11 and the A47 will become not a gateway to that nirvana of growth but a congestion blackspot that holds it back.

I know that time is short, and I want to conclude by talking about safety. As colleagues have mentioned, for many of our constituents, for whom tomorrow’s economy might seem a long way off, the real issue is those who are condemned to sit in traffic jams and witness near misses every day caused by intermittent dualling. In my rural constituency, there are people on horseback, on bicycles, in three-wheeled cars and on motorbikes. People cross the road to go from village to village. To get to a post office, a pub or a business meeting, they have to cross a national route. Intermittent dualling results in people driving fast to overtake in sections where they can do so, and then slowing down. The A47 is a very dangerous route. Last year, when we had our first Adjournment debate on the matter, there were nine fatal accidents in only a few months. There is a long history of high rates of accidents and fatalities on the road.

I particularly want to highlight the Dereham to Swaffham section, which, for reasons that I cannot understand, does not seem to have been properly recognised in the feasibility study. Will the Minister look specifically at that matter? I know that my hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) stands with me on that, even though she could not be here this morning. We are concerned about the omission of that section from the feasibility study.

We seek a national strategic commitment from the Government to full dualling of the A47, as one of the top six routes nationally. We are realistic, and we know that the bulldozers will not start tomorrow and the whole thing will not be done in one go. Such a commitment would, however, unlock the planning and investment blight that is holding back our area. There is serious doubt in the minds of potential investors that the work will be done, and if we can remove that doubt we will deliver growth.

We do not ask what the Government can do for us; we ask the Minister to give us the tools to enable us to demonstrate what we can do for our country. We do not want a handout. We want to get away from handouts. We want a way in and a way out to unlock the sustainable growth that will allow our region to do so much more for our country. I hope that the power of that message comes across not only from Norfolk but from the whole of our region. The A47 is a key economic national route and we urge the Government to recognise it as such.

Oral Answers to Questions

George Freeman Excerpts

Thursday 12th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Burns]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point. He is anxious to have a direct service on the conventional rail network from Shrewsbury to London and I have considerable sympathy and support for that. That is one of the reasons that high-speed rail is so important: it is capacity, capacity, capacity, to echo a former Prime Minister on another subject. That is what will be achieved, which will help areas such as Shrewsbury.

[George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)]

9. What plans he has to ensure that the roads spending programme supports a) the A47 and b) other routes of strategic regional and national economic importance.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Stephen Hammond)]

The development of route-based strategies by the Highways Agency will provide much smarter investment planning for the strategic road network. On 20 August, the Government announced that the Department would undertake a feasibility study on the A47 to identify ways to improve performance and support economic growth in East Anglia. I of course look forward to visiting my hon. Friend’s constituency and the A47 on Monday.

[George Freeman]

I thank the Minister for his commitment to the roads budget and for his agreement to visit Norfolk next week; his visit is widely anticipated and welcomed. As he knows from the Adjournment debate that we have had, the dossier that he has seen and the business plan prepared by the A47 Alliance, the A47 is a key economic artery linking our offshore energy cluster, the research park and the midlands. Assuming we have a successful visit next week, what opportunity might there be to access some funding to begin the process in the next few years?

[Stephen Hammond]

The announced study will focus on the route-based solutions that will unlock the potential for local transport innovation and for economic and housing improvements. I thank my hon. Friend for his support for the Government’s investment, and I am sure that the visit next week will be successful.

Disabled Access (Train Stations)

George Freeman Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd July 2013 Westminster Hall

[Rory Stewart]

That is a wonderful example. The argument is about learning not just from Northern Ireland, but from the symbolic benefit. At a time when the public are increasingly frustrated and perplexed by what politicians are up to and about what our job is, such projects are highly visible—people can relate to them and see them—and they generate employment. They are exactly the kind of highly visible infrastructure projects that this Government are promising and that I believe we ought to be able to deliver.

[George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)]

I am reluctant to interrupt my hon. Friend’s eloquent exposition. If I might be forgiven the pun, he is making a very good set of points. In particular, he makes a good point about how this country has reached out to the disabled community. Anyone who watched the Paralympics last year would be disabused of any remaining notion that disabled people are not able to rise to the challenge.

Does my hon. Friend agree that disability access is often access for others as well? At rural stations in my constituency, investment in disability facilities benefits bike users, mums with prams and others who are less able to get around. Does he agree that stations in rural areas, with rural broadband and infrastructure, are often the hub of a vibrant rural economy? In my constituency, Wymondham station is the model. I was recently lobbied by some constituents, led by Joy Batley. They have to get off at the southbound platform and get a taxi back to the other side to cross the track.

[Rory Stewart]

My hon. Friend makes a very eloquent statement. It strikes me that that point—that we should not focus simply on footfall or on disability numbers—is absolutely essential to make to the Minister. My hon. Friend’s argument is crucial: we are of course talking not just about people over 65 or those with prams, but about the usual requirements of tourists, for example. Many of us may represent constituencies that have a high number of tourists, who by their very nature tend to travel with large suitcases and bags.

Oral Answers to Questions

George Freeman Excerpts

Thursday 27th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Tom Brake]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. Some Select Committees do provide the level of scrutiny that he wants. For instance, the Health Committee and the Transport Committee look at the estimates carefully. I am pleased to say that at least one of the estimates day debates, on 3 July, is a broad one that will look at public expenditure on health and care services.

[George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)]

As we drive forward the necessarily tough reforms and efficiency savings in the public sector, I urge the Government to keep their foot on the pedal in driving that revolution through the internal mechanics of Government. What steps can this House take better to scrutinise Government expenditure and, indeed, expenditure in the House, so that we can show the public that we are putting our own house in order?

[Tom Brake]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. As I have stated, more effective use could be made of estimates day debates. We have a range of Select Committees that look at financial matters. I think most people would agree that they are effective in doing that.

A47 (Upgrading and Dualling)

George Freeman Excerpts

Thursday 7th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)]

The A47 is a strategic route of national and regional importance to the East Anglian and the Norfolk economies. I am delighted to have an opportunity to raise the subject in the House, and to encourage and thank the Minister for his support for the work of all the Norfolk Members and others in the region; highlight the importance of the proposed works to our local economy and the national economy; and seek further reassurance from the Minister on some of the points on which he reassured me when we met before Christmas.

Let me first thank the Minister and his colleagues in the Department for Transport for their encouragement. Last summer we went to see the Minister’s predecessor as roads Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning), who told us that historically the road had not been supported by the regional development agency and that we had our work cut out to make the case. The Government’s approach now is to invite local parties to set out a clear business plan for roads, and to make the case that Government investment will be more than matched by significant co-investment along the route.

I am delighted to say that the county council, New Anglia—the local enterprise partnership—and all the local Members of Parliament and business organisations came together to produce a report that set out exactly what the Government had asked for: a business plan for the route entitled “A47—Gateway to Growth”. I am delighted that that document was so well received by the Government, and grateful to the Minister and his officials for their support for it.

[Mr Henry Bellingham (North West Norfolk) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate, and I am delighted that he has supported the Minister, who has taken a great interest in the issue. We in west Norfolk were delighted by the Minister’s recent announcement that we would indeed be given the Middleton crossing for which we had been pushing for a long time. Does my hon. Friend agree that the A47 really does need more dualling to ensure that Norfolk fulfils its full potential? He may be aware that the White Paper “Roads for Prosperity”—published in 1988, before he was born—recommended that the entire road should be dualled. After all those years, we really must make more progress.

[George Freeman]

My hon. Friend has made a powerful and important point, to which I am sure the Minister will want to respond.

I have initiated this debate in order to highlight the key strategic importance of this route to our economy, to raise its profile nationally and to build the momentum of the important campaign and the work that is taking place locally. The road is of key strategic importance to our region and our nation, but it is also a dangerous route for those who use and cross it. I believe, and I know that the other local Members believe, that it could act as a catalyst, enabling East Anglia to become a genuine centre for innovation and enterprise focused on the greater Norwich economy. I hope that the Minister will provide further reassurance this evening that the Government will make the route a priority in the next round of funding, will look kindly on my request for pinch-point funds, and will view sympathetically my concern about some of the bottlenecks that need particularly urgent attention because they have the greatest potential to unlock growth.

[Mr Richard Bacon (South Norfolk) (Con)]

My hon. Friend raised the issue of safety. My constituents are lucky, in that the section of the A47 that is immediately to the north of them, in both the east and the west, is the bit that is immediately south of Norwich, which is dualled. As my hon. Friend knows, however, the road stops being dualled very slightly to the west of that. People whom I have employed in my office for years knew people—often they were at school with them—who were killed in accidents on that extremely dangerous stretch just to the west of the point at which the dualling ceases. Does my hon. Friend agree that of all the various considerations, safety should be one of the foremost in the Minister’s mind?

[George Freeman]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. He is absolutely right that one of the most dangerous things about this road now is its intermittent dualling. In both of our constituencies, some of the most lethal sections are those where the road goes from dualled to undualled. Every month we hear of terrible injuries and deaths on the road.

This campaign has the full support not only of the county council and the local enterprise partnership, but of all my fellow Norfolk MPs, and I thank them for their leadership and support. On this, as on other infrastructure issues, we are “Norfolk united.” A number of colleagues are unable to speak in the debate. In particular, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis), who is now rightly on the Front Bench as Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. He has played a key role in highlighting the Acle straight and the Vauxhall roundabout, and in making our case powerfully to Ministers and helping to organise the two meetings we have had. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), who also holds a Front-Bench post, as Under-Secretary of State for Education, and is unable to be here tonight. She has made clear her support for the A47 as a major route.

Across Norfolk we have for many years waited in vain for infrastructure funding. It is well recognised that this coalition Government have done more in the last two or three years for infrastructure in Norfolk than have successive Governments over previous decades. We have finally had success on the A11. Those of us who use that road, which is still a bottleneck, can now see the bulldozers laying the foundations for the dualling that will be done by 2015.

[Simon Wright (Norwich South) (LD)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. I hope many of the important A47 junction improvements adjacent to my constituency, such as those on to the A11, the A140 and on to Longwater, will be made available through local developer contributions, freeing up land capacity to support thousands of new jobs in Norwich. Does he agree, however, that the city will become even more attractive to investors when harder-to-fund schemes between Great Yarmouth and Norwich out to King’s Lynn and the west become deliverable, too?

[George Freeman]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, which serves to remind me that the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Miss Smith), who could not be present tonight and who is also muted by virtue of being on the Front Bench, has asked me to pass on this comment:

“The A47 is an important road for Norwich businesses and households. I support the campaign for its improvement because it will bring more jobs to the city and around the county.”

Norfolk has waited for infrastructure improvements for a long time, and now, like the No. 11 bus, many have come at once: the A11 is being dualled; there is substantial investment in our rail network as a result of our putting together our Anglian rail prospectus; and the Government are funding fast broadband. All of that comes not before time, because our county is ready to rise and meet the challenge of a rebalanced economy. With the necessary infrastructure in place, we will be able to do so.

The A47 is now the most pressing and urgent infrastructure issue in our county. It is the blocked artery that runs across it from east to west, linking our economy to the midlands and allowing goods to be moved in and out. We have major ports of international significance on our east coast, and in and around Great Yarmouth there is an increasingly significant energy cluster. It is lamentable that this road was not prioritised by the RDA, and many of us may wonder why on earth not.

My personal interest is obvious. The A47 runs right through the middle of my Mid Norfolk constituency and, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon) has highlighted, its intermittent dualling presents great dangers to all its users and to those in the rural economy who seek not to use the A47, but to cross it, whether on bicycle, horse or tractor. I know from my own experiences of cycling the route before the last election just how dangerous it is. At this point I should like to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland (Mr Simpson), who recently drove the route in a union flag-bedecked Mini from east to west to highlight its importance.

My other interest in this issue is as the Government’s adviser on life sciences. I have talked before in this Chamber about the potential of the Norwich research park, an increasingly globally recognised centre of science and research in three of the most exciting global markets: food, medicine and energy. Its companies pioneer some of the most exciting science in the country, such as the blight-resistant potato and the Lotus car I recently saw that is fuelled by biofuels created from agricultural waste.

Norwich is a centre of life sciences, but it sits out deep in the last county not to be connected properly to the national trunk road system, and with no non-stop links through to the rail network. It is a county that desperately needs infrastructure if it is to be allowed to play its part in the Government’s mission to rebalance our economy.

The truth is that this is a trans-European route of economic significance that has been neglected for far too long. The lack of connectivity and poor development are holding back the whole Norfolk economy. With investment in our infrastructure, we can spread growth around and reduce the amount that we in government have to spend on welfare and on tackling the problems of social and economic exclusion that flow from poor infrastructure.

The opportunity is significant. As the business plan makes clear, with a programme of targeted improvements we can transform the 105 miles of the A47 into a truly strategic national and international link, linking our region to central and northern Europe and to the midlands and the north of England, and linking our regional clusters—Cambridge, Norwich, Yarmouth and Ipswich—of innovation and science and new business growth. As the business plan makes clear, over the 20 years for which it sets out the programme of work, we have the potential to generate 10,000 jobs, to increase the economic output of our county by £390 million a year, to attract private investment worth more than £800 million, to recruit an extra 500 investment-related jobs and to cut journey times by 30 minutes, delivering savings of £42 million to road users. These are significant numbers, and they are not, Mr Deputy Speaker, you will be pleased to know, plucked out of the air but put together by professional consultants and officials at the county council and the LEP who constructed the business case. Of course, these works will also dramatically improve safety for users and for those crossing the route.

Importantly, the document sets out a series of regional benefits across the route. In King’s Lynn, in the west, where the focus is on regeneration, the plan envisages 750 new jobs, £15 million of private investment and 400 new dwellings.

[Mr Bellingham]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for mentioning King’s Lynn. Obviously, Norwich has the most phenomenal potential and is going to move forward, and King’s Lynn wants to do the same. If King’s Lynn is connected to Norwich by an improved A47, it will really be a part of that economic regeneration. That is why this is so important not just for links to the rest of the country, but within Norfolk itself.

[George Freeman]

My hon. Friend is a passionate and effective advocate for King’s Lynn and that area, and he has done extraordinary work in putting it on the map, both through rail and now through road. He makes an excellent point: by connecting these centres, we not only improve the national economy but help to tackle problems of exclusion and deprivation locally.

The business plan makes clear the economic benefits in Norwich: 5,000 jobs, £240 million in additional private investment and an extra 2,500 dwellings. For Great Yarmouth—represented admirably by the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth, who has to sit silent on the Front Bench and listen to me describe the benefits in his own constituency—the figures are 3,865 jobs, £227 million in private investment, and 200 dwellings.

It is not least for that reason that the business plan has had such support from the local business community. Richard Marks, managing director of John Lewis in Norwich, said:

“Norwich is growing its reputation as a retail destination…we support the proposals which will help improve communication across the county”.

Matthew Jones, chief operating officer of Norwich research park, said:

“The NRP fully supports the plans for improving the A47 which are essential to achieving the huge potential of the park to drive economic growth and development of the greater Norwich area”.

Phil Gadd, contracts director at Norwich airport, said:

“The world can fly to Norwich. However, it cannot access the region. We need to improve the A47”

as a strategic gateway. The chairman of the Mid Norfolk branch of the Federation of Small Businesses said:

“I regularly use the A47, if I could just save 15 minutes every day and everyone else using the A47 could do the same, that equates to thousands of hours every year.”

[Mr Bacon]

My hon. Friend mentioned the Norwich research park, which is in my constituency and has the largest concentration, as he will know, of plant and food scientists in Europe, and possibly the world. He will also know that the Government have put money into improvements at the research park, which is extremely welcome. However, does he agree that the value of that taxpayer investment will be deflated to some extent if the connection that we want to see between Norwich and the cluster of expertise there and elsewhere, in centres such as Cambridge, cannot be improved?

[George Freeman]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. It would be madness for the Government, having recognised the potential of our region—and the NRP as the jewel in the crown of the Norfolk innovation economy—in terms of making improvements to the A11, rail and broadband, and of creating and helping to support a cluster of new businesses and growth, to then hold that back by allowing the A47, the clogged artery of Norfolk, to constrict and constrain growth. We know that if we cannot get the goods in and out and if we cannot get the talent, the goods and the people we need in to the middle of Norwich quickly—to the Norwich research park, which sits on the edge of his constituency and mine—the investment that the Government have already made will not deliver its full potential. With this artery unclogged, we will be able to make that money work properly.

The Minister gave us huge reassurance when we met before Christmas. I was delighted, as we all were, to hear him say that the Government are funding three route-based strategies in the current financial year to upgrade key routes across the country: the A1 in Newcastle, the M62 and the A12. We were told that those three strategies being undertaken by the Highways Agency will inform funding decisions to be made in the next Government spending review period from 2015 onwards. He made it extremely clear to us that he was obviously not able, at that time, to give us any clear commitment or guarantees on funding, but he did acknowledge that the case we made was very powerful and said that he would look carefully at it. He said:

“I’m convinced this could be the 4th or 5th scheme to put into this route-based strategy process.”

I am hoping that he will now reassure us that his convictions have only been strengthened by what he has heard tonight.

I have talked to the county council and the New Anglia LEP, and they have highlighted that we have an excellent opportunity now to bring forward elements of the programme through the Government’s pinch-point programme for trunk roads. A number of the more modest schemes proposed along the route would seem to fit the criteria, and I hope that the Minister will be able to give a little reassurance that we are pushing at an open door here. In particular, I am thinking here of the A47 Acle straight ditch relocation scheme, the details of which I will spare the House, although I will happily provide them to him and his officials after the debate, if that would be helpful; the junctions of the James Paget hospital, Beacon park roundabout and Bridge road with the A12 at Great Yarmouth; the A149 Asda junction in Great Yarmouth; and the A47 and B1108 junction at Norwich.

Although support for those schemes would be hugely welcome, the criteria mean that the highest priority and most-needed measures to stimulate housing and jobs growth are not within the scope of the current funding, as they are too large. We wanted to take the opportunity to highlight a number of projects tonight, and they are as follows: a third river crossing in Great Yarmouth; improvements at the A47 Vauxhall roundabout in Great Yarmouth; the A47 Easton to North Tuddenham dualling; the Acle straight dualling to North Burlingham; the Thickthorn interchange; the A47 Longwater junction; and improvements to the A47 Hardwick junction.

As the business case shows, local partners have been active in seeking local contributions towards those schemes. However, the scale of investment is such that Government support will be essential for us to be able to secure an overall funding package. We would all welcome any advice from the Minister as to how best we might be able to access such support.

In response to the presentation of the business case before Christmas, the Minister was very clear, telling us:

“The A47 campaign had put together a very powerful and well constructed argument. They have moved substantially forward from where they were two years ago. They have the local authorities, MPs and the local enterprise partnership all working together. I certainly recognise that the A47 is a corridor of strategic importance, and I think I did give them hope there is going to be progress on this project.”

I want to close by thanking the Minister for his diligence, his commitment to this project and his encouragement for the work that we are doing. I ask him to take this opportunity tonight to reassure us that we are pushing at an open door and to give us as much hope as he can that this blocked artery will quickly be unblocked, for the benefit of the nation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Hammond]

Indeed—much talked about but seldom delivered. It is worth putting it on the record that the A47 Alliance rightly puts those proposals back into the package. They would be of great benefit.

My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Norfolk rightly recognises that we are developing route-based strategies as a way of analysis. Three are already being trialled. In considering major future enhancements to the network, we are looking to local authorities, local enterprise partnerships and other interested parties, including academic institutions and councils, to work together to assess the potential of their region by addressing not only the transport problems that they face, but the economic growth that would be unleashed if those transport problems and congestion were resolved.

It is right, as I stated in December and am happy to reaffirm this evening, that excellent work has been done by the A47 Alliance. That is ideally placed to be considered one of the earliest route-based strategies in the forthcoming programme, and I hope that it will be among the first one or two after the three that we are currently considering.

I conclude by thanking my hon. Friend for yet again making the case. I recognise absolutely the importance of the A47 and the economic improvements that it could bring. I am convinced that East Anglia is not a Cinderella region. I made that point when I was with my hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk at the start of works for the A11 dualling. The interest from colleagues here on a Thursday evening shows how powerfully they are making the case for their constituencies, sometimes purposefully from the Back Benches and sometimes a little more mutedly by my hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth.

[George Freeman]

He is not normally that quiet.

[Stephen Hammond]

He is this evening, but the force of his advocacy for his constituents is recognised.

I recognise the importance of the A47 and I am glad that we have yet again been able to air its importance this evening.

Question put and agreed to.

Rail (East Anglia)

George Freeman Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd July 2012 Westminster Hall

[George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)]

It is a pleasure, Mr Hollobone, to serve under your chairmanship. I add my voice to those congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) on our behalf. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Miss Smith) on leading the choreography to pull us all together, which is no easy task. I add my name to those of hon. Members who mentioned the local enterprise partnership, Abellio and Network Rail, who have all worked closely with us to make sure that the document has their active support and their approval of the measures within it as realistic. Jonathan Denby of Abellio has been a powerful force in helping to shape and drive the matter.

The prospectus sets out an ambitious, long-term vision for the East Anglian rail network. First and foremost, for far too long, commuters have had to put up with unacceptable under-investment in a network that they have paid for many times over. I want to focus on the importance of the East Anglia rail network in underpinning our modern economy.

Before coming to Parliament, I spent 15 years in East Anglia helping to build, finance and manage fast-growth science and technology businesses around Cambridge and Norwich. I know well and can testify to the growth potential in the area to which other hon. Members have referred, and which the Government are recognising in a number of their initiatives for an innovation-led recovery. They have powerfully—rightly in my view—set out the need for us to adopt a different model of economic growth and development in the light of the crisis that we inherited. It is a more balanced model of development driven much more from the regions and by business with finance following business growth, and without everyone having to commute to London to feed the banking machine, which is free to support and grow real businesses around the country, particularly drawing on our skills in the knowledge economy, whether life sciences, the digital economy, clean energy, food, nutrition or agriculture.

As hon. Members know, no region is better equipped than East Anglia to grab that opportunity, and to lead a new model of economic growth. Since the war—for far too long—East Anglia has been treated, seemingly, by successive Administrations as an area that can be taken for granted and from which people will commute to London, however poor the investment. Alternatively, it is seen as something of a rural backwater for retirees and house dumping when London targets need to be accommodated.

The area is ready to rise and do something more for this country. It is building great businesses across the board, but it cannot do that without infrastructure. That is why a coalition of Norfolk MPs, and those from across East Anglia more widely, are coming to the Government with a central message: we do not want a handout; give us a way in and a way out and we will deliver sustainable growth.

Fast modern rail is crucial to modern economies around the world for a number of reasons. We live in a global economy, and every start-up business in our area needs to think globally. Fast rail is a crucial link to our airports at Stansted and Norwich, as well as other London hubs, and it is crucial if we are to link the City of London’s world-class financial expertise to businesses in those clusters. In life sciences, for example—my area of expertise—if we do not link better Oxford, Cambridge and Norwich to London, so that people can fly in from around the world to visit companies, scientists and investors in these areas, we will not unlock our full potential. I like to think that in due course, our Cambridge-Norwich line might be part of a wider emphasis on a Oxford-Cambridge-Norwich railway that links the life sciences.

As we heard in an eloquent speech from my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), the cost of the gridlock that is East Anglia on an average morning or evening comes to £1 billion a year. People are sitting in cars and trains going nowhere in an area that has a lot more to offer.

Finally, Cambridge sits at the heart of the region that has the potential to drive global growth. As I know well because I was working there at the time, perhaps the most powerful thing that happened to unlock Cambridge’s growth—described eloquently as the “Cambridge phenomenon”—was the improvement of fast rail links to London, and principally the two hourly non-stop service. It became known as the “VC Express” or the “Cambridge Flyer”, and it dramatically shortened not only travel times, but cultural perceptions of the distance between Cambridge and London. Investors in London started jumping on the train and popping up to Cambridge for a morning to meet and view interesting companies. That is not happening at the moment in Ipswich, Norwich and other areas, but it could.

As we have heard, our region has been woefully neglected over the years. It was heartening to hear the Minister and the Secretary of State recognise at the highest level the need to balance rail expenditure between areas and tackle regional discrimination. It has also been recognised that the area is a net contributor to the Treasury, and with infrastructure we could deliver growth and sustainable development.

I would like to put down a marker. If the Government are thinking about pilot schemes for integrating the train operating companies with Network Rail to drive new models of more integrated planning, as we mention in the prospectus, we would like East Anglia to be considered for any such initiative.

We will not build a high-quality economy and attract and retain world-class talent if we allow our area to become a giant housing estate, with commuters condemned to traffic and gridlock. That is especially important to residents in my constituency of Mid Norfolk which sits, as the Minister may know, between Cambridge and Thetford on the Cambridge to Norwich line. Average incomes in my constituency are below £20,000—well below the national average. It is a very rural area that some might describe as something of a backwater in terms of national communications. It sits in the middle of the only county that is not yet connected to the national trunk road system, but it is zoned for massive housing growth, particularly in Wymondham and Attleborough, as well as further down the Cambridge-Norwich line in Thetford and Brandon.

The towns of Wymondham and Attleborough are happy to grow, but they want infrastructure so that growth is sustainable and will not be allowed to damage and undermine their quality of life. The railway sits at the heart of that challenge. If we simply build houses, and plan on the basis that everybody will drive, the morning after our beloved A11 is opened in its newly dualled state, it will quickly become a car park. The A11 needs to be the artery of East Anglia, but that will require more people in new homes to jump on the train to Cambridge, Norwich, Thetford or Ely in the morning.

The Minister will not be surprised that I mention the Ely North junction. It is the key bottleneck in plans to unlock the Cambridge-Norwich railway that was reopened less than a decade ago. The plans have strong cross-party support, but the junction is a bottleneck on the Cambridge-Norwich line, the Fen line and the freight line. I know that the Minister and the Secretary of State have been at pains to listen to the problem, and we are grateful for the time and trouble that they have taken. The Minister’s support on this issue has been crucial, and we hugely look forward to her reply.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ben Gummer]

I agree. My hon. Friend will know and I am sure that you, Mr Bone, will know very well that that sense of purpose is unusual in the east of England. When first the railway was driven up to Norwich, the good people of Norwich tried very hard to ensure that it did not go through Ipswich. They preferred a route that went via Cambridge. In the end, they got something approaching both. At that time, the town and the city were at war with each other for the privilege of having the railway. Happily, sense prevailed, but such was the animosity during that period—there is a serious point to this—that the quality of the infrastructure laid down suffered; investment was not forthcoming because there was no political direction to facilitate the backing required. That is why only two lines go between Chelmsford and Ipswich and then from Ipswich to Norwich. The result of that and the rather substandard nature of the track itself in places is that it has never fulfilled the desires and wishes even of the Victorian builders. We have constantly had to catch up since in terms of infrastructure improvements.

We start, therefore, from the position of having a poor railway in our region. It has had running repairs and second-hand rolling stock at every point; it has never had new rolling stock, apart from at its inception in the 1830s and 1840s. That is why all of us coming together as Members of Parliament, county councils, borough councils and local enterprise partnerships across the region is so important. We have established that sense of purpose with a view to obtaining what is a rather modest amount of investment compared with other infrastructure projects across the country.

I impress on my right hon. Friend the Minister both our unity and the fact that what we are asking for is very small compared with the release of economic growth and the possibilities for jobs and prosperity that the investment would give our region. I was not here earlier in the debate, but I am sure that the issue has been brought up. All of us have a vision not just for the railway, but for our region as a whole. It should be the California of Europe. It has a knowledge base that is certainly comparable with that in California, if not greater. It is a place where people want to live; it is a very attractive place in which to live and work. It is also close to the largest finance centre in the world. There is no reason at all why the eastern region should not achieve double-digit growth.

The reason why we are so keen to see that growth is that it will unlock potential for our constituents, especially those in certain areas. In our region—you, Mr Bone, will see this in your own constituency—there are significant pockets of severe deprivation, some of which are in my constituency. If we are to offer the people living there the opportunities that the Government are keen to extend to larger areas of deprivation in London and the north and in the nations of Scotland and Wales, we should also consider areas that may be smaller but suffer from similar levels of deprivation and require the assistance that the Government can provide in terms of investment.

[George Freeman]

Does my hon. Friend agree that as well as the importance of the commuter lines down to London, the regional links, not least between Ipswich, Cambridge and Norwich, are very important? We could combine Cambridge’s bioscience and digital and Norwich’s agricultural science, cleantech and food and medical science with Ipswich’s wonderful West Suffolk college and the Martlesham BT digital centre of excellence. If we put those together, we would build a very powerful triangle of innovation, to the benefit of all the villages and towns in the area.

[Ben Gummer]

I entirely agree. It is remarkable—a wonder—to see what has been achieved in Cambridge. It is remarkable also to see what is happening in Norwich—20 years of life science investment and innovation coming right. That is why it is so exciting to see some of the incipient projects in Ipswich. I was at University Campus Suffolk a few weeks ago to hear about some of the joint research projects that it is undertaking with significant universities around the country. It is a brand-new university—the youngest in the country—and it is already doing exciting advanced research. Some of the research, as my hon. Friend will know, involves geriatric science and the life sciences connected with that.

In Ipswich, there is an incipient life sciences industry, based around the largest software research centre in the country—Martlesham, just outside Ipswich, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey). Together with a very significantly growing food and drink sector and a large tourism sector in the county as a whole, it should contribute to remarkable growth, which could be released to the UK economy. East Anglia is already one of only two regions that are net contributors to the UK economy. Its contribution could be made even more significant.