Transport Infrastructure: Devon and Somerset

Debate between Ian Liddell-Grainger and Simon Jupp

Tuesday 23rd April 2024 Westminster Hall

[Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater and West Somerset) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered roads and other transport infrastructure in Devon and Somerset.

May I say how nice it is to serve under a Devon MP of great standing and long service, who knows his county better than most of us? I am delighted to be able to make this speech.

When talking about our constituents in Westminster Hall, it is rare that we are able to talk cross border. The Tiverton and Minehead seat, as you now know, Mr Streeter, is new and will cross the boundary of Devon and Somerset. This is a good chance for us to discuss my memories from my days as the Member for Torridge and West Devon before my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon (Sir Geoffrey Cox)—we were talking about potholes then, and that was 1997.

When digging around on Google and many of these other things—which I confess not to completely understand —I discovered just how contentiously difficult potholes are. I did not know, but pothole sizes and potholes in the road have names. I know this sounds interesting, so I will read some of them out: The Canyon—I think we can work that one out; The Alligator, a little more tricky; The Sniper; The Slalom; and The Alcatraz. There are many more named on a website. On discovering a pothole, the Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman), when he is up in Hexham, can look it up and say, “Ah! There’s an Alligator,” or, “There is Alcatraz”—up in Northumberland, that is the wall.

It is intriguing: this has become a sort of national sport. In Devon, there is a Facebook page called “Devon Potholes”. It is fascinating how incensed people are by something that should really be simple to solve. Recently, in Watchet, which is in the Bridgwater and West Somerset constituency as it currently is, a little bit of private road had not been done up—because it was private—and the Daily Mail actually filled in the potholes to help a 101-year-old get in and out of their house. That is the national view of potholes.

I will give some of these ghastly statistics—which is what we all live by in this place—taking Devon first. In 2019, there were around 50,000 reported potholes, of which they claim to have repaired 50,000—I find that convenient, like all local government statistics. In 2022, there were 34,000—so there has been a reduction—of which they claim to have repaired 32,150. Okay, I hear what they say: given that we drive around the roads of Devon, I dare say this is possibly not as straightforward as it may seem.

[Simon Jupp (East Devon) (Con)]

I get out and about speaking to people across my part of Devon every single week, and our roads are a constant concern and grumble on the doorstep. We all know that MPs across the region have consistently campaigned for more funding to resurface and repair our roads—this is not just about potholes; it is also about resurfacing. By redirecting funds from the spiralling—and, to be fair, deeply questionable —cost of HS2, the Government have delivered millions of pounds for our county to speed up pothole repairs, but thanks to the Government boosting its budget, Devon County Council will invest an extra £10 million this financial year into our roads, taking the highway maintenance budget to over £72 million. Does my hon. Friend agree that Devon County Council is right to spend whatever it takes to get our roads back to the standard we expect?

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

My hon. Friend has championed Devon for longer than I have had the opportunity to do so, and I greatly welcome his gentle advice about the situation on the roads. I am very grateful for the work he has done. I know he has worked very hard with the leader of Devon to make sure we secured the money—I say “we”, and that is a very grand collective “we”. I know that you, Mr Streeter, were involved in that. It is a very good piece of news indeed, and I am grateful to Devon —£72 million is a huge amount.

That just shows, however, that it has become endemic that we never have enough money to do this. Although the claims are there, the reality, which I know from driving around Devon—I certainly know it from the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Simon Jupp)—is that this is a never-ending battle, and one that we all must fight. Funnily enough, I do not blame either Somerset or Devon for the situation we are in. This has gone on for so long that it has become almost a self-fulfilling prophecy. We have aspirations all the time—

Levelling Up: South-west

Debate between Ian Liddell-Grainger and Simon Jupp

Tuesday 4th July 2023 Westminster Hall

[Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater and West Somerset) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered levelling up in the South West.

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Charles. I am delighted to see you. I thank the House for granting me this short debate.

The phrase “levelling up” is not a recent innovation, believe it or not. It was talked about in Parliament 150 years ago, as some hon. Members may remember. In the 1860s, for example, their noble lordships and the bishops were getting bogged down in another place debating delicate questions about rival religions in Ireland. A wise old peer intervened and said that we could only treat Anglicans and Catholics equally

“by levelling up or by levelling down”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 29 June 1868; Vol. 193, c. 183.]

I do not know whether hon. Members can make head or tail of that, but that is levelling up.

I am delighted that the Minister for Levelling Up is in her place; I am so pleased that she is replying to this debate, and I thank her for her thoughts and kindness. I doubt whether there is any political disagreement about the principles of keeping everything level. Why should there be? It means working to equalise opportunities and providing a level playing field for constituents across the UK. Right now, the only people who could possibly object to a level playing field, as we understand it, are the Australian cricket team, and I am pretty sure that Jonny Bairstow would agree with me—damned foreigners!

The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, in which my hon. Friend plays an invaluable role, has published some maps that are very detailed indeed. They show how much money has been allocated to a huge array of projects in our constituencies all over the country. They are very large maps, covered with multicoloured markers. They remind me of the huge maps down in the depths of the RAF Uxbridge command centre on the western outskirts of London, where I have been recently—it may ring some bells. Those maps are from 83 years ago, so I am glad to see that we are still using the old tried and trusted methods.

It is helpful to keep that image in mind, because the scale of the task in levelling up is almost as heavy as it was for the battle of Britain. It is a herculean task, especially when we study those maps. As one naturally would, I immediately noticed the markers in my own constituency. Bridgwater’s transport needs have had to be reorganised with a very large grant indeed, for which I am incredibly grateful. The towns fund, for which I am also very grateful, will be used to bump up facilities in the constituency. There are also to be a new NHS training centre for Bridgwater and Minehead. These are well thought-out projects, and I am very grateful for the money. It has been a great team effort by a lot of good people.

Inevitably, my eyes wander around these vast maps. I know Somerset, and as colleagues know, I come from Devon originally. Strangely, the bits that stick out are not the places with coloured markers; they are the areas without a single flag or marker in sight, like Mid Devon. There ought to be only two possible conclusions: either those places are so prosperous that they do not need help, which colleagues well know is not the case, or they are bleak, empty deserts where nobody lives at all, which is obviously not true either—they are extremely good areas. In fact, levelling up has not reached these places either because bids have been submitted but have not made it or because there have been no bids at all.

It would not be fair to blame the Government. That is not how this works, and we know it. The rules of levelling up have not changed, from the first opportunity we went for many years ago to what we have now. If we want a project to be considered, we have to do one simple thing: work out exactly what we hope to achieve and then make a very intelligent, well thought-out bid. I get the distinct impression that sometimes—not just in my constituency, but right across the area, because I have looked at an enormous amount of bids—the intelligence is in slightly short supply. There has to be a proper business case, as the Minister is well aware.

I currently represent an area that has an exceptional district council, which has spearheaded the bids. Sedgemoor District Council has been a shining example in this and has had more bids than anywhere in the country. It understood local needs; it also got local people involved at the highest level. At the same time, it managed to mastermind national and international negotiations to bring many thousands of jobs to Bridgwater, and beyond. In fact, this affects all our constituencies.

[Simon Jupp (East Devon) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

It is with great pleasure that I give way to my neighbour.

[Simon Jupp]

I appreciate my hon. Friend’s speech and the points that he is making. Devon, Cornwall, Dorset and Somerset have secured £231 million from the levelling-up fund so far. Plus, we have seen the reopening of the Dartmoor line and spades in the ground to dual more of the A303. Those four counties make up the great south-west; I chair the all-party parliamentary group for the great South West. Does my hon. Friend agree with me that although the Government are backing our region, there is still much more to do?

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

I am incredibly grateful for that intervention, not only because my hon. Friend has done sterling work in the south-west and is well known and revered for it but because the A303 has been a labour of love for him; I know that it has been incredibly hard. For 22 years, Sir Charles—as you know, I have been here that long, God help you—it has been a bone of contention, but I think that my hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Simon Jupp) has managed to move it on further than almost any of us, and I congratulate him on that. The A303 is crucial for all of us.

That neatly brings me on to the fact that Sedgemoor smoothed the way for building Hinkley Point C nuclear power station, as my colleagues are well aware. This was a mammoth task for a local council. It did a superb job, an amazing job, on a £25 billion project, which nobody had done for a generation. Sedgemoor has also been working incredibly hard to attract the latest innovations to the town. The chances are that the latest opportunity will soon be announced. I cannot say what it is, but it is called Gravity and it is on an old bombsite outside Bridgwater; it goes to 626 acres. I think that we will hopefully be announcing good news on that soon. Again, that will help the whole south-west with a massive input—