Oral Answers to Questions
Helen Goodman Excerpts(5 years, 2 months ago)
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Jesse Norman
I can only congratulate my hon. Friend on his astonishing timing, because the Department will be discussing this matter—both the timetable and the scope of the study—with council officials on 21 February.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Buses remain the most commonly used mode of public transport, with local bus travel accounting for around 59% of all public transport journeys. The number of local bus passenger journeys has been falling since the 1950s. By contrast, the number of people owning their own cars has obviously been increasing.
Helen Goodman
It is now cheaper to fly to Alicante than to take a bus from Barnard Castle to Spennymoor in my constituency. Many of my constituents say that the buses are just far too expensive. Does the Minister not understand that her cuts to the bus grant are the problem?
Ms Ghani
I would not want anybody not to be flying to Alicante, but it is important to note that, when Labour was in control, bus fares went up three times as fast every year than under the Conservative Government. Anybody who wants to be out of pocket should vote in a Labour Government, because they will put up bus fares three times as fast.
Seaborne Freight
Helen Goodman Excerpts(5 years, 2 months ago)
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Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
In another triumph of the Department’s no-deal Brexit planning, the Secretary of State’s junior Minister wrote to all Members of Parliament about the hauliers who, presumably, will use these sea routes, saying that 3,816 international permits had been awarded, but there are 526,000 HGV hauliers in this country, so fewer than 1% will be able to get a licence. Is this really going to work in the event of no deal?
Chris Grayling
As you will be aware, Mr Speaker, the European Commission has already said that it wants haulage to continue. It does not expect a permit-based system to be required. But in the event of a no-deal Brexit, we have bilateral agreements with a number of other EU member states that come into effect. We have put in place a system to distribute the ECMT permits precisely because we want to make sure that all bases are covered. However, we wrote to hauliers last week saying that they were being issued as a formality. Nothing that has happened so far would lead us to believe that those restrictions will be there.
Oral Answers to Questions
Helen Goodman Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
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Alan Mak (Havant) (Con)
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Jesse Norman)
The Department for Transport is providing over £6.6 billion to local highway authorities in England between 2015 and 2021 to improve the condition of local roads. That includes a £296 million pothole action fund and the additional £420 million for local highways maintenance announced in Budget 2018.
Jesse Norman
I am well aware of my hon. Friend’s interest in technology and the potential ways in which it can improve productivity. He is absolutely right, and I encourage all councils to use technology better as far as possible for residents to report road-related problems. As he will be aware, they do so in Hampshire, where the county council uses an online reporting tool, but the Department has also done work to support this, not least through assistance to Cycling UK to revamp its pothole reporting website.
Helen Goodman
I hope that the Minister will find £60 million for County Durham. In the meantime, new estates are being built without proper roads. Instead of overseeing this 21st-century squalor, will he talk to his colleagues in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to require the planning rules to be changed so that roads are built to adoptable standards?
Jesse Norman
The hon. Lady will be surprised to know that there is a housing infrastructure fund that is in part precisely designed to facilitate the relationship between road building and new housing, and of course, that is what it is doing.
Transport Secretary: East Coast Franchise
Helen Goodman Excerpts(5 years, 11 months ago)
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Andy McDonald
That is entirely a matter for the Welsh Government.
The east coast saga is littered with incompetence and delusion, alongside a frankly cavalier regard for the public and passenger interest by a succession of Transport Ministers.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
This is now the sixth change of management for the east coast main line in 11 years. That cannot be good for any organisation. Does my hon. Friend know what is happening to the planned investment programme of new trains being built by Hitachi in the north-east?
Andy McDonald
My hon. Friend is entirely right. There are people now working on the east coast main line who are expecting their sixth change of uniform in 10 years. It is absolutely ludicrous. There has been an appalling record over the past several years.
Iain Stewart
No, my point is that Virgin is making a profit on the line and is very able to meet the competition, but what is difficult to forecast accurately—[Interruption.] If the hon. Lady stops chuntering and listens to what I have to say, I will answer her point. The revenues have grown, but they have not reached the very ambitious levels that we set. Many factors behind that are completely unrelated to the rail industry. I shall touch on some that are related to the rail industry, but those that are not include fuel costs, which are considerably lower than was envisaged at the time the franchise was let—
Iain Stewart
No; if it is cheaper for people to use motor vehicles, they are more likely to do that than to use the train. There is a question mark over the extent to which Network Rail’s non-delivery of some of the upgrade projects is a factor; that is part of the picture about which I do not yet know and is something that we will scrutinise. There is also something more fundamental happening in the nature of rail usage, relating to different travel-to-work arrangements and work patterns. There is currently no clear idea of what is behind that, but it will affect other franchises, as well as the east coast line.
Iain Stewart
Absolutely not. I will come to that point and refer to the evidence that the Select Committee heard on Monday from Iryna Terlecky, who has many decades of experience in the rail industry.
The shortfall in projected revenue would have happened irrespective of who owned and ran the railway. The difference is that under a nationalised system, the public purse would have taken an immediate hit from the loss of revenue, whereas under the system we have, the parent company and the bond that it put up has taken the brunt of it.
Iain Stewart
No; forgive me, but I have three minutes left and the hon. Lady’s previous intervention was not really up to scratch.
There are of course lessons to be learned about how we base our revenue projections over a long period. There need to be more cautious forecasts of rail revenues over the long term. Indeed, I think that that has already happened in respect of some of the franchises that have subsequently been let. We need to revisit some of the Brown recommendations on the balance of risk that an operator takes against extraneous factors that are not to do with the direct operation of the railway. In the end, though, the franchise system does work; it does deliver enhanced performance. I, too, remember what British Rail was like when I was a child, and it was not a glorious existence.
Let me conclude on what I hope is a more consensual point. I am a sentimental old railway buff and I cheer the reintroduction of the LNER brand. LNER was one of the big four private companies that transformed this country’s rail system in the first half of the previous century. May I make one little plea? LNER had iconic liveries, from the apple green of the Flying Scotsman to what is called the garter blue of the Mallard and the Gresley class, and the teak colour of the carriages. Please can we have that back and rekindle the romance of the railways of those years? I am absolutely certain that that would help to keep passenger numbers high and ensure that this important railway line has a bright future.
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) and other expert members of the Transport Committee who have spoken in this debate. I am only sorry that the Secretary of State has left the Chamber—left the dock, effectively—because I was rather hoping that we might discuss what we will do with the £2,400. I was going to suggest that we should perhaps buy him a bus pass, because I am very keen on moving from rail to bus. I was actually going to say something nice about him as well—only one nice thing, I hasten to add—because I was going to thank him for raising the vexed issue of the timetable changes. Many Members will have heard their constituents’ concerns about the way in which the process has been handled. Of course, this is a major set of changes—we understand that—and such change is not easy to implement.
I was on the “Mann in the Morning” programme on wonderful Radio Cambridgeshire this morning, listening to people who have had bad experiences on the rail line from Cambridge. Those experiences were immediately blamed by the Secretary of State on Network Rail. We are now in the process of no longer transferring risk within the system, but transferring blame. It is not all about Network Rail; the train operating companies must bear some responsibility. If we get a chance to look into what happened around this timetable change, we may well find that that is the case, too.
The positive side is that people in the industry want to make it work. The message from passengers that I heard today is that they want the system to be run as a public service, and that is also the ethos that many in the industry want. We should try to focus on that because, despite privatisation over 25 years, most people in the rail industry still have a public sector ethos. If we could celebrate that and make it work, we would do much better.
I do not agree with Members who say that the franchising system works. I am deeply sceptical about it. A number of reasons have been raised for the failure of this particular franchise. Network Rail is, of course, immediately blamed for ideological reasons. In fact, the evidence given to the Transport Committee rather suggested that the relationships were “not very clear” and that there were some “implicit” understandings rather than “contractual” understandings. If we are writing big contracts, we do not do it like that. Network Rail was not to blame for the failure of this particular contract. It was probably down to a decline in the number of season ticket sales because this route, as has been said, is volatile.
If we are to return to the Brown recommendations and say that train operating companies should not be subjected to these big macroeconomic risks, I would ask what kind of risk transfer is really taking place. These are the very risks that we face, and other businesses have to cope with such risks.
Helen Goodman
This discussion about the over-bidding on the franchise reminds me precisely of the discussion that we had with the mobile phone companies, which came along, cap in hand, having overbid for their spectrum. It was clear that the system was just not working because people wildly overbid.
Daniel Zeichner
I am afraid that my hon. Friend is right. That takes us into a much broader philosophical discussion about how we get investment into our key industries, and that applies to a whole range of discussions. Just look at the huge number of consultants, lawyers, contracts and all the rest of it that are involved. We are told that some 300 people are employed just on trying to sort out who is responsible for delays and that hundreds of millions of pounds are lost on this process. Frankly, do we really need all of that? What are the train operating companies actually delivering, apart from the delightful colour changes that have been suggested? If we ask passengers what they want, they say an integrated system. They are talking not about transferring risk or arguing about blame, but about getting the system to work. Let me conclude with a few words about the so-called future partnership model.
Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill
Helen Goodman ExcerptsMonday 29th January 2018
(6 years, 3 months ago)
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Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
I understand the purpose of new clause 1, which has good intentions. I am sure that the Minister has considered the implications for privacy and personal data, so will he explain how that will be secured under this system?
Jesse Norman
A considerable amount of work is being done in the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe on how data is to be handled in terms of safety on the autonomous vehicles side. As for the electricity side, there is no reason to think that the protocols that are being developed will impinge upon privacy, but that remains a matter for definition in future secondary legislation.
Helen Goodman
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker; I was not expecting to be called to speak so early as I have not tabled an amendment.
I did not serve on the Bill Committee, but I spoke on Second Reading about charging points. Just before Second Reading, I purchased a Nissan Leaf. Three months on, I have a little more experience, and I am afraid that I am slightly less enthused of my Leaf than I was in October. My experience has highlighted some policy issues. If Ministers want people to make the transition to electric vehicles, the issue of charging points and their availability is fundamental. We need more charging points.
New clause 2, tabled by the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse), is absolutely spot on. Along with all public car parks, I would add to the list in her new clause hospitals, public buildings, local authority buildings, schools and libraries. All are places where people park. We do not just go between shops and our homes; we go to many different places.
Wera Hobhouse
Does the hon. Lady agree with my experience, which is that we need a carrot and a stick?
Helen Goodman
The hon. Lady is absolutely right. I have the slightest suspicion that those people who wrote the strategy and who have worked on the Bill may not yet have electric cars themselves. It all seems to be good in theory, but how does it work in practice?
Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)
I am curious as to whether my hon. Friend has, in the three months she has had her Leaf, attempted to drive from her wonderful constituency in Bishop Auckland down to Parliament? If she has, what was it like? If she has not, why not?
Helen Goodman
I certainly would not dream of driving to Westminster because it is far too far—it is way beyond the range. I shall talk about how far I can get in my car when I have finished my remarks on charge points.
Michelle Donelan (Chippenham) (Con)
Does the hon. Lady share my disappointment that only five councils in the UK have taken advantage of the Government’s on-street residential charging point scheme, which offers to fund 75% of the cost of creating charging points?
Helen Goodman
That is very interesting. I think local authorities have not taken up that offer in the way people hoped because there are no resources for the upkeep of the charging points.
On Second Reading, I asked whether planning permission for new housing developments should require charging points. I am disappointed that that has not been mentioned by the Minister or in any of the new clauses or amendments. I also sent a rather long letter to the Department, to the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes) who was handling the Bill extremely well. I am also disappointed that I have not had a reply to my letter, as the then Minister told me that he was going to discuss the planning issues with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. It is no good Ministers relying on people charging their car at home, because to do so, people must have off-street parking. A third of this country lives in terraced housing or flats without off-street parking, which is why we need charge points along residential roads everywhere.
Helen Goodman
Good. I am very pleased to hear from the right hon. Gentleman, and I look forward to a positive response from the Minister on this issue of planning permission.
To some extent, new clause 3 covers my next point, which is that we need one system not just for paying when we go to the charge point, but for interconnections. When trying to charge up a car at a public point, it is incredibly annoying for a person to find that they have the wrong kind of plug. It is as absurd as if we had an electricity system in which some houses have three-point plugs, some five point plugs, and others two-point plugs. We have gone way beyond that. Although we want to encourage the private sector—when it comes to manufacturing the cars and the great work that Nissan and Toyota do, we are all in favour of it—the infrastructure for charging is a natural monopoly. It is obvious that the Government should be taking control of it. I am also slightly concerned that there has been systematic mis-selling and over-inflation on the range of electric cars.
Paul Girvan (South Antrim) (DUP)
I appreciate the issue associated with the difference in the types of plugs that are required, but is that not going to demand an international standard to be set and agreed not just by this Government but worldwide, to ensure uniformity of connections with each make of vehicle and the grid?
Helen Goodman
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right; I had not thought of that point. When I go on holiday, I normally hire another car, rather than driving from the UK, but, of course, many people want to take their own car overseas, so he makes a very fair point. It would be interesting to know whether the Government have initiated any discussion in the European Union, for example, on this point.
Let me come back to the point about range, and what I think is a serious breach of consumer rights and trade descriptions. I bought my Leaf from Bristol Street Motors in Darlington, and I was told that it had a range of 125 miles. As I was about to explain to my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), I thought that that was fine because it meant that I could travel from my constituency to Newcastle, when I visit the regional organisations for the north-east, and get back again on one charge, but when I collected the car, it was charged up to only 75 miles. I said, “This is 30% less efficient! It is like buying a box of six eggs, but finding when you open the box that there are only four eggs. This is really not acceptable.” The garage people tweaked it around a bit, but they still could only charge it up—I have never charged it beyond this—to 85 miles. That is very different from the 125 miles that I was told. Indeed, having looked at the Nissan website, I found that the over-emphasis not only came from the dealer to whom I spoke, but was on the website itself. The guy who came round to fit my pod point and to whom I explained this problem said, “Oh, I hear it all the time. People are constantly disappointed that their cars don’t have the range that they were sold as having.” This is pretty fundamental. People need to know what they are buying and what they are getting. A 30% reduction in the capacity of what the car can do is a significant difference.
Mrs Hodgson
As my hon. Friend knows, Nissan is in my constituency, so I am very interested in her point. When I took a Leaf for a test drive—I do not have one yet; I am not as lucky as she is—I was told that the number of miles that people can get depends on how they drive. Is that the issue to which she is referring, or is it something different?
Helen Goodman
I do not think it can be that, because when I charge up the car, it does not even reach the amount. Sometimes when I am driving along, the charge seems to go down much faster than the number of miles that I am actually covering, but I cannot charge it to the level that is claimed.
Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)
A number of people recognise that the first version of the Leaf—my hon. Friend got one of the last ones—did not have a great range. A new model is now out, which at least says that it has a much higher range, and I have no reason to doubt that. What this actually highlights is that the Government need to do more to incentivise plug-in hybrids. Although pure electric is fine for the short journey, it is likely that, for a while yet, the car needs another technology for the longer journey. Getting clear incentives for plug-in hybrids might make a contribution towards that. In fact, the way that grants have been structured, we have gone rather in the other direction.
Helen Goodman
My hon. Friend makes a very fair point. It is also related to the issue that the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings raised about the importance of having fast charge-up plugs—I am not sure what one calls them—rather than the ordinary slow-speed ones. Last week, for example, I wanted to charge up the car while I went to the supermarket. In the half hour that I was in the supermarket, it had only increased its charging by 8 miles. That is pathetic by anybody’s standards. That is just not what one would expect. If that is the rate at which people are charging up on motorways, it really is not working. The technology needs to be improved with respect to the measurement inside the car. Last Thursday night, I set off to go home with 22 miles on the meter, but at 14 miles the car conked out in the dark. Not only was I extremely inconvenienced by this, but it was extremely dangerous, because somebody else could have driven into the car. It is also a problem for the police, and so on. It is incredibly important that we get this right. I would like the Minister to be far more ambitious. We need a really big strategy. I know that the Minister loves markets, but I am a Keynesian, and I think that this would also be really good for the British economy.
Oral Answers to Questions
Helen Goodman Excerpts(6 years, 5 months ago)
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Chris Grayling
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his comments, and I am very pleased that we have got the go-ahead to deliver that road improvement for the people of Cornwall. It is really important for the regions of this country—whether the north-east or the south-west—and particularly areas that need to be given more infrastructure support so that their economies develop, to get the kind of investments that they are now getting, and we are very committed to going forward with that in the future.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
Chris Grayling
Bus fares are something over which my Department has less control, particularly with the new franchising arrangements that are coming into place, but I will most certainly make sure that the Under-Secretary of State for Transport who is responsible for buses, my hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman), is aware of the hon. Lady’s concerns and that we respond to her.
Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill
Helen Goodman ExcerptsMonday 23rd October 2017
(6 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Hayes
In the end, these are of course matters for the Mayor, and the Mayor must come to his own judgment. My own view is that it should be called the K charge, for the Khan charge, or perhaps the M charge, for the Mayor’s charge, so that people know exactly why it is being levied. Frankly, I have some doubts about the effect it may have on less well-off drivers and families. I take the view that we need to strike a balance between, on the one hand, being ambitious in respect of clean air—we have set out our plans, which I was involved in drawing up—and, on the other hand, disadvantaging many people who own older diesel or perhaps petrol vehicles, who will be affected by the charge. It is not progressive, after all, to say that everyone, regardless of their circumstances and regardless of who they are, what they are doing and where they are working, should pay the charge. I have some doubts about it, but in the end it is a matter for the Mayor, and he will be answerable for his own K charge.
Let me move on to the substance of what we are trying to do. In practice, we have long since moved beyond the question of whether road transport will be electrified. It is now irrefragable that that will occur. The question now is when—not whether—and at what pace. For many manufacturers in the UK, the answer to that question is, frankly, now. For Nissan, it means the second generation of its best-selling Leaf, capable of about 200 emission-free miles between charges, which is being built in Sunderland. For BMW, it means the introduction of an all-electric version of the Mini to be built in Oxford from 2019. For Jaguar Land Rover, it means the introduction of the world’s first electric premium sport utility vehicle, the I-Pace, coming next year, with every single Jaguar Land Rover vehicle being electrified from 2020. Just those examples alone show that British-made electric vehicles are increasingly competitive around the world, but if we are to keep that leading edge into the next decade, we need the UK’s charging infrastructure to keep improving.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
I bought a Nissan Leaf last month, and I was very struck by the fact that for people to have their own charging point, they need off-street parking, which is obviously not possible for anyone who has a flat or a terraced house. Will Ministers please consider changing the planning rules to require charging points on new roads in all new housing developments, as well as at railway stations and in all publicly owned car parks, as in France?
Mr Hayes
I will not give way, because I want to make a little progress. I will then give way more liberally—although I hate to use that word, except as a pejorative—as time goes on.
We are not alone in recognising the benefits of electric vehicles. Many major car-producing countries are looking beyond conventional petrol and diesel technology. That is why we want to accelerate the transition and bring the benefits of electric vehicles to drivers, the public and our environment as soon as we can. We are giving financial help to motorists who choose cleaner vehicles through grants and the tax system, as I mentioned, and supporting local authorities to provide incentives such as free parking and congestion charge exemptions. Through the Bill, we want to make it easier and more convenient to recharge electric vehicles.
The Government have already aided the development of a network of about 11,500 public charge points in the UK and significant funding is in place to develop many more. However, in the years ahead, we want electric cars, be they hydrogen fuel cell technology or battery powered, to break into the mass market. The Bill therefore includes several new powers to help to make that a reality. Those powers will establish common technical standards and greater interoperability; increase the amount of consumer information on the location and availability of charge points; and accelerate the roll-out of electric vehicle infrastructure at key locations such as motorway service areas and large fuel stations. However, we will look at other measures, because it is important to ensure that charge points do not become concentrated in the way that the hon. Member for Swansea West and others have described.
There is already a rapid charger at nearly all motorway service areas, but I am mindful of what the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock) said about making sure that they are working efficiently. We will consider that as a result of his contribution.
Karl Turner
I am sure the House is very pleased to hear that.
The section of the Bill on EV-charging infrastructure is largely about enabling secondary legislation, and will not have significant impacts in the short term, but we agree that if the UK intends to be a global leader, we need to take broader action sooner rather than later. Given the importance of future-proofing the legislative framework in this area, the Opposition recognise the need to use secondary legislation, but we will seek commitments from the Government to consult properly and widely throughout the process. We will also be seeking assurances and a review from the Government of how the provisions of the Bill fit within a broader strategy for reducing harmful vehicle emissions and promoting a switch to ULEVs and EVs. If uptake is to be encouraged, electric vehicles need to be practical, affordable and convenient for users, which means providing the necessary infrastructure.
Helen Goodman
My hon. Friend is absolutely right: the infrastructure is essential. What thought has he given to what we need to do to prevent the situation that we have with broadband? There is very good coverage in certain places but there are notspots in others, and that has really disadvantaged some areas.
Karl Turner
My hon. Friend is right; we have discussed this point, and I will come to it again a little later in my remarks.
Helen Goodman
On the point about skills, as I have said I bought a Nissan Leaf, and I was struck by the fact that the men in the garage were not good at explaining how it worked. Of the 20 people employed there, I think that only one really understood it. The sales forces also have to understand how these things work.
Karl Turner
My hon. Friend is absolutely right: there must be proper training for sales personnel as well.
On infrastructure more broadly, the Government must ensure that regulatory divergence does not develop between the UK and the EU as a result of Brexit; this is a very important issue. We must absolutely ensure that regulation and standards are maintained after Brexit. That is essential if the UK is to be the vehicle manufacturers’ location of choice for the development, testing and deployment of automated and electric vehicles. However, if the Government continue to mess up Brexit, any positives this Bill brings in terms of encouraging the automated and low emissions vehicles industries will be completely negated.
Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation
Helen Goodman Excerpts(9 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Tyrie
An answer to that would need to be quite long and involved, but I invite the hon. Lady to come to our hearing with the IFS because that is a central issue. I am not at all sure that the IFS got it quite right on the basis of the published data. In any case, if I may say so, it did not quite say what she purports it to say.
Helen Goodman
The Chairman of the Select Committee is trying to make the case that there have not been distributional problems, but as I am sure he knows, the truth is that according to the Government’s own statistics, there are 2 million more households living in absolute poverty in this country.
Mr Tyrie
We will be looking at such issues. I was not trying to make that case, or if I was, I was also pointing out that, in the early stages of the recession created by the financial crisis, almost every sector of society had borne some of the burden. I think that the Hansard record will show that I made that point.
We have to rely on conflicting survey data from the Office for National Statistics. The Bank of England has complained about the quality of data, and a heap of other people have said that the data need to be improved. The Treasury Committee ought to look at that in the next Parliament. Some data suggest that the man in the middle is not much better off even in nominal terms—the point was made by the Leader of the Opposition—which is based on the annual survey of hours and earnings. However, another ONS annual survey shows that the man or woman in the middle who has been in continuous employment has done well since 2010, both in nominal and real terms. Those data need to be considered very carefully, because the overwhelming majority of people in work have been in continuous or near continuous employment for the past five years. The data look quite persuasive as an overall picture of living standards. In answer to the hon. Lady’s intervention, the Treasury Committee will certainly consider that matter.
Whoever wins the next election—I hope the whole House will understand that I am very biased about who I think will win—all these tricky issues will need to be considered carefully. The Committee will need to set to work on further research into some of the points and policies covered in this Budget and over this Parliament. Competition in lending and banking has already been mentioned, and we must find a way of getting much greater competition in the banking sector. In relation to doing more to encourage long-term savings, the measures announced today are only a start, because something has been seriously wrong with the savings culture in this country for a long time. The Committee has already said a good deal about reforming and simplifying the tax system, and more needs to be done. The fact that some parts of the tax system are still hopelessly complex provides an opportunity for tax avoidance and evasion, reduces the yield and is bad for overall economic performance. There are also the economic effects—by no means all good—of current energy policy, among many other important energy issues, its reliefs, allowances and public spending subsidies.
What matters most are the measures that will succeed in releasing the energies of the British people. That used to travel under the name of supply-side reform. The next Parliament, with the next Government inheriting a more stable economy, will be an opportunity to get more supply-side reforms under way. I have a clear view, as do many other Members, about how to accomplish that, but it is absolutely essential to move on from the deficit reduction task to that of ensuring we improve the overall economic performance of the British economy in the long run.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
We heard a characteristically self-congratulatory speech from the Chancellor earlier today. According to him, his strategy is working and his early austerity is paying off, with a growing economy, rising employment, a falling deficit and even enough room for manoeuvre for a few more tax cuts. Let us take each claim in turn.
This has been the slowest recovery from a recession ever recorded. The economy was growing when Labour left office in 2010. The Chancellor slammed on the brakes. The OBR estimates that the economic loss was 2% of GDP in the first two years; a professor of economics at Oxford university estimates it at 5%. That is £1,500 for every man, woman and child.
It is true, of course, that employment is now rising, but not as much as Government Members claim. The JSA claimant count is down to 800,000 but the figure on the International Labour Organisation’s unemployment measure is 1.8 million and the rate varies among particular groups. In the north-east it is 8%, while for young people it is 16%, and, as other colleagues have said, many jobs are zero hours and low paid. Average earnings have fallen. They are not forecast to reach pre-recession levels until 2020, fully 12 years later.
Poverty is up and earnings are down, the consequence of which is that tax revenues have been weak, so the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s deficit and debt reduction targets have both been missed. The deficit is down by a third, not eradicated as planned. Debt is up by a third and £200 billion more has been borrowed than was planned. Living standards have fallen and inflation is below target, verging on the negative, while interest rates have never been lower and are negative in real terms.
None of that suggests that the economy needs to be reined in or that there is spare capacity, yet the Chancellor is planning to go into the next general election with a plan to cut both tax and spending. The Red Book shows a 5% reduction in GDP—between £60 billion and £70 billion of cuts. The OBR analysis also shows huge reductions in the first two years—indeed, bigger than those we have seen in the last five. Obviously that will further deflate the economy. Even the Financial Times this week was describing it as “unnecessarily extreme”.
What the economy needs is continued growth and measures to boost productivity, which fell last year and has stalled in the last six. Productivity in Britain is now lower than it is in the United States, Germany, France and Italy. Higher productivity would mean higher wages and make our exports more competitive, which would be especially useful at the moment, when the pound is rising against the euro. According to the OBR, higher productivity would also mean higher growth and lower debt. Indeed, the OBR’s scenarios show a massive difference in the debt-to-GDP ratio, of 50% to 57%, compared with 87%. The OBR describes the productivity performance in this country over the last five years as disappointing.
In other words, what this Budget should have contained was measures to boost productivity, which would have improved the public finances—measures such as better access to finance for SMEs, through a British investment bank; maintaining and improving the skills of the labour force, through a young person’s job guarantee, better vocational education and cuts to tuition fees; substantial improvements to the nation’s infrastructure; and devolving economic power and funding to city and county regions.
Mr Newmark
I will buy the hon. Lady an extra minute, because I can see that she has got a thick wodge. She is one of the more economically literate Members on the Opposition Benches and she has made a number of proposals, so I wonder how she proposes to pay for all those things. Is it more tax, more borrowing or a higher deficit?
Helen Goodman
The whole point about the plans that we are putting to the British people is that we think it is reasonable to borrow for investment, in the same way that people borrow to buy a house. We think that is a sensible proposal for the nation as a whole. It would build capacity and mean that everybody had a higher standard of living, that we had faster growth and that revenues were higher, and in the end the deficit would come down.
Today, there is no new money for infrastructure. The Chancellor spoke about it a lot, but he was simply elaborating on the plans he put before the House in the autumn statement. There is no new money for science, for SMEs, for transport or for broadband.
The Chancellor proposed changes to personal tax allowances that will benefit people on higher incomes far more substantially than they will benefit those on lower incomes. A person earning under £10,000 a year will get no benefit. A person earning between £11,000 and £43,000 will benefit to the tune of £80, or by as little as £20 if they are on housing benefit or tax credits, because those benefits will be withdrawn. The biggest benefit of the increased tax allowance will go to people earning between £43,000 and £100,000. They will get £160 in their back pockets.
The Government propose significant changes to the savings and pensions tax regimes that will cost £1.7 billion. I put it to hon. Members that it might be nice for people to save and nice to have a better tax regime for a small number of people, but when our economy is in such a weak state, they can hardly be a priority on which it is appropriate to spend £1.7 billion. That will obviously benefit the better-off people in this country as opposed to the vast majority of people.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) comprehensively demolished the Government’s help-to-buy proposals. It is absolutely absurd to keep pumping money into the housing bubble in the south-east and not to do something about the underlying problem. Building homes would tackle the housing crisis, create jobs and boost the economy. In my constituency last year, not a single property was exchanged for £600,000, which is the Government’s limit in their Help to Buy scheme. That epitomises all that is wrong with the Government and how totally out of touch they are.
Furthermore, I believe that the Budget is dishonest. It tells only half the story. It does not set out where a further £9 billion cuts in welfare would be found; it does not say what the rate of VAT will be after the election; it does not say how big cuts would be to defence, police and local government; and it does not say whether charges will be needed in the NHS.
I do not believe that the British people want a fundamental re-imagining of the state. They want something simple: a better future with a Labour Government.
East Coast Main Line
Helen Goodman Excerpts(9 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr McLoughlin
I might have to write to my hon. Friend on the details of the balance between premium and standard fares, but we have seen a tremendous improvement with the technology surrounding advanced booking, giving people some very good deals when they book their tickets in advance.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
Whoever runs the franchise, trains will be made at Newton Aycliffe. Will the Secretary of State please explain why he was quite content for a French nationalised industry to bid, but not for a British one to do the same?
Mr McLoughlin
I have no objection to foreign companies wanting to invest in this country. I would have thought that the hon. Lady welcomed the fact that Hitachi is building new plants in Newton Aycliffe. She is not decrying Hitachi because it is a foreign company, is she? I have no objection to foreign countries wanting to invest in the United Kingdom. I welcome it.
Transport in the North-East
Helen Goodman Excerpts(9 years, 6 months ago)
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Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Caton. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson) on securing this very important debate. Transport in the north-east has a massive impact on the economic prospects of the region, as well as on the quality of life of all our constituents.
The transport infrastructure in the north-east is in an abysmal state. It is the only region of the country that is not connected to the rest of the nation by a motorway. Going north to Scotland, the road is in some cases a single carriageway. Going south through Yorkshire, the last Labour Government had a scheme for widening the stretch between Leeming and Barton. This Government put it off, then brought it back. The delay means that we will not get the widening scheme till 2017.
Looking from east to west, as the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) said, we have the same problem on the A66. If the Minister is not interested in what Labour Members from the north-east say, I hope that he is listening to the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), who is also concerned about the state of the A66. It means that an exporter in Middlesbrough who wants to sell something to a person in Liverpool has to send their lorries through a 30-mph zone, through the suburbs of Darlington. This is no way to run an economy.
Some people were rather shocked to discover that dualling the A1 to Berwick would cost £42 million, but the fact is that this Government are perfectly able to give the Mayor of London a £1 billion guarantee to extend the tube from Victoria to Battersea—a journey of a mere two miles—yet, when it comes to our region, the settlements are totally inadequate. When the Chancellor of the Exchequer switched money from public services to capital infrastructure in 2011, we got a grand total of 0.1% of the capital. That is completely inadequate, and I want to know what the Minister will do about the state of these major route arteries. The answer that I had from him to a parliamentary question was completely uninformative. I hope that today he will say a little more.
I concur entirely with the comments from colleagues about bad experiences. There are people in my constituency who are offered jobs but have to turn them down because they simply could not get to work. There are villages where there is only one bus a day. Evenwood, Cockfield, Ramshaw, Woodland, Lynesack, Copley and Softley are all phenomenally badly served because the Government cut the bus grant.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mr John Hayes)
For the benefit of my summing-up, I just want to be clear. The hon. Lady said that she completely concurred. Does she completely concur with the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson), who introduced the debate, or with the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), who made criticisms? I did not understand what she was concurring with.
Helen Goodman
I am concurring with the comments about the abysmal state of the service. That is what I am agreeing with. It is terrible, dreadful and completely unacceptable, and it obviously needs more money put into it—money that this Government have taken away.
There is a similar problem with potholes. Durham county council did a survey and found that the cost of mending the potholes on the unadopted roads in our county would come to £600 million. Obviously that cannot be done overnight, but this Government have cut Durham’s Government grant by 40%, so we are now going backwards, not forwards. The Minister may think, “Oh well, what do potholes matter?” Potholes do matter, because they mean that people get mud in their houses. Women have to clean their carpets totally unnecessarily. There are big holes in the streets. They flood. [Interruption.] They flood, and water gets into the house. The whole thing is like something from an 18th-century painting. It is completely unacceptable.
Finally, I want to say something about airports —my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) has tempted me to do so. I am not in favour of a third runway at Heathrow. I think that we need to bolster the regional airports instead. That seems to me to be a much better idea. It would be better for us and better for London. Will the Minister do something about restoring the London link, either to London Heathrow or to London Gatwick, from Durham Tees Valley airport? Will he address that with the Civil Aviation Authority?