Oral Answers to Questions
Jim McMahon Excerpts(2 years, 10 months ago)
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Grant Shapps
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The last few weeks have seen a remarkable digital transformation in the background, which means that people coming in from green-list countries have been going to e-gates that have been updated, both physically and with software, or going to see a Border Force officer and having their passports scanned in one way or the other. That has been automatically linked back to the passenger locator form that they filled out before they left their country of departure, which tells Border Force whether they have had a pre-departure test and whether they have future tests booked. This links the whole machinery together, so yes, the automation is really starting to get into place now.
Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)
Yesterday, hundreds of workers in the aviation and tourism industry held a demonstration outside Parliament urging the Government to protect their jobs and those of 1.5 million people employed in aviation and the wider supply chain. On behalf of the countless staff and trade unions I spoke to, will the Secretary of State finally deliver on the sectoral deal that his Government promised but have so far failed to deliver? When he makes an announcement later on the traffic light system, which, it should be noted, is not being made to this House, will he publish the criteria, the country-by-country assessment and the direction of travel for each country, to give travellers confidence to plan for this summer?
Grant Shapps
I find the hon. Gentleman’s policy confusing, only because, as I understand it, he has previously called for all countries to be put into the red category, meaning that there would be no travel at all. In addition, the former shadow Chancellor has said that Labour would never provide financial support to these companies, yet Labour is now saying that it wants more support to be provided and the hon. Gentleman is saying that he does not want to follow his own policy. Having a red, amber and green list enables people to see which countries are in which category, and the Joint Biosecurity Centre is publishing the data on the website to show why particular countries are in each category.
Jim McMahon
I can give you an assurance, Mr Speaker, that I have tried my hardest to get the Transport Secretary to fully understand our sectoral deal and the way we have laid it out, but I cannot help the confusion that continues to reign with this Transport Secretary.
Let us now move closer to home. We have had two questions today on the DVLA in Swansea, and the Transport Secretary did not give a convincing answer to either. It was reported last week that a deal had been reached with staff, trade unions and the Government to finally resolve the industrial dispute over health and safety failings at the DVLA in Swansea, but that it was pulled at the last minute by a Minister. Will the Secretary of State confirm whether he or senior members of the Department pulled the deal, and, if so, why? He and his Department are now squarely against the loyal workforce at DVLA Swansea. What will he now do to restore trust and confidence in those fantastic workers?
Grant Shapps
The Public and Commercial Services Union continues to take industrial action, which is targeting the services and having a negative impact on some of the most vulnerable people in society. The fact of the matter is that the safety concerns have been signed off by Public Health Wales, the Health and Safety Executive, the Welsh Government and the UK Government, yet this strike continues and now is apparently not about healthcare, but about demands over money instead. Will the hon. Gentleman actually ask people to go back to their work in order to help vulnerable people in this country? That is the question and this House needs to know.
Britain’s Railways
Jim McMahon Excerpts(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)
May I start by thanking the Secretary of State for Transport for an advance copy of the statement, together with the report that was issued earlier this morning? It is two and a half years since the Williams review was first commissioned, and the very fact that Williams was commissioned at all shows that the state, the travelling public and those excluded from the railways because of accessibility have been given a poor deal.
While much has changed through the network due to covid, what the Secretary of State has announced today was pretty much what was recorded in The Daily Telegraph last November. If that is the case, will he confirm why did he not make the announcement back in November, when it was reported in the national press?
Taking the announcements in turn today, the Secretary of State said that control of the infrastructure and the contracting of train operations will be given to this new arm’s length Government-owned body, with private firms bidding for concessions with an agreed profit margin built in. Can the Secretary of State confirm whether a publicly owned provider will be able to bid for these concessions on a level playing field? Will he also confirm whether the operator of last resort will continue to exist? If so, will it be brought fully back in-house?
It has been reported that the Treasury is demanding cost cuts of between 10% and 20%. There is concern that rather than seeing increased investment, the real driver behind bringing all this together is more about disguising painful cuts. Any talk of cuts in funding, such as the £1 billion funding cut to Network Rail that we have already seen, will have a direct impact on jobs, our regions and vital maintenance and upgrade works. Does the Secretary of State know how many jobs could be lost with a reduction of 10% or 20%, and what it might mean to each of our regions? The head of Network Rail, Andrew Haines, and its chairman, Sir Peter Hendy, are to be tasked with drawing up the processes and structures of the new Great British Railways. What date have they been given to report back?
On freight, can the Secretary of State say a little more about how the reforms will impact on the track access regime and about the governance arrangements that will exist for freight when Network Rail takes control of the passenger railways and freight together, albeit under a different name? Decarbonising transport will require a much greater shift if we are to move more from road to rail. How will the reforms help rail freight grow as part of decarbonising freight transport? Importantly, what targets will the Secretary of State set in that regard?
The Government have also made an announcement on flexible ticketing, although to date few details have been provided. The lack of any detail on these tickets and whether they will actually be cheaper for the travelling public frankly renders the announcement almost useless to millions of passengers. There is a danger that flexible ticketing will fail to meet the test of encouraging people back on to rail as we come through this pandemic. What research have the Government done to ensure that the type of product being suggested will address the needs of the travelling public and get more people back on to rail?
This report fundamentally fails to tackle one of the biggest challenges with our transport system, which is that the different modes of transport just do not talk to each other. They do not turn up together when required and they are not joined up. We need a bus and train system that genuinely connects people, rather than leaving them cold, standing, waiting for connecting services. Will the Secretary of State work towards joining up different modes of transport? Critically, if so, what devolved powers does he envisage for our metro Mayors and our transport authorities as part of this plan?
On devolution, will the Government finally follow through on transferring train station responsibilities to our metro Mayors, as was expected in Greater Manchester some years ago? We have not seen any detail on what profit margin operators can expect in practice and whether the cost of that will hit fares or investment. How quickly will the Government publish that?
While I welcome the steps to increase public ownership and control over the railways, as hon. Members might expect, they do not go far enough in this plan. There is ample proof to demonstrate that fuller public ownership, rather than a concession model, would better serve the state, the public and long-term investment. I fear that the Government have really not understood the scale of the challenge in front of them. While we may well see a change of name on the side of the trains, fundamentally passengers will still be left short-changed. Although the Minister says that this is not about nationalisation, the fact is that, as we have seen through covid, we have nationalised risk but continue to allow the privatisation of profit.
Grant Shapps
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I have to say that I sympathise, because I appreciate that it must have been difficult to take in a report of 114 pages in the time available. Skimming through it and coming up with questions will have been difficult, and I therefore understand why he asked some questions that are answered fully in the White Paper itself. Less understandable and harder to fathom is how it was possible to put out press comments about the content of the White Paper last night before it was even seen, including a lot of points already covered in the White Paper, and therefore rather misfiring in direction. Let me try to pick through some of the questions asked.
Why two and a half years? As I mentioned, the breakdown in the timetable took place three years ago this week. Keith Williams was appointed to carry out the review, which he has done at no cost to the taxpayer, I should mention, and brilliantly. There was this thing called covid, and we went into the second and third lockdowns in November, so it was perfectly proper to wait until we had a clear indication and for the vaccine to be deployed before coming to the House with the full report. That also enabled us to bring that report up to date with what is actually happening in the running of those rail services.
The hon. Gentleman asked about the operator of last resort and whether it will still exist. The answer is in the report: yes, very much so. As he knows, I already effectively run Northern and the east coast mainline through the operator of last resort. It is not about disguising cuts of any type. He keeps coming back to £1 billion of control period 6 rail funding. Because of covid, operators were unable to spend the money, but they will have that money to spend in the next period. None the less, we have ongoing one of the biggest ever rail transformation programmes, if not the biggest.
The timescales for change are all in the White Paper, and the good news is that we will get going on this immediately. The hon. Gentleman will notice that the bottom left-hand corner on the front of the White Paper says “CP 423”, which means that it is command paper 423, which means that we can get on with it, and we are doing that from this moment. A very good example of that is flexi-tickets. He says that there is not enough detail. I am pleased to let the House know that that detail will all be available on 21 June, and that they will go on sale on 28 June. If he takes the time to look in the notes to editors at the back, he will see a large number of examples of what fares will be. These will save people money in each circumstance if they are travelling two or three days a week.
The hon. Gentleman asked about freight. I refer him to page 78 of the White Paper, which talks about freight and our desire to make sure that those freight paths are available within our railway. The advantage of Great British Railways looking after all this is that we will be able to accommodate freight paths. He asked about the decarbonisation that freight will help to bring, and he is absolutely right to focus on that. I am pleased to tell him that a transport decarbonisation plan will be published before the summer that will focus very much on how we already use the best form of transport when it comes to decarbonisation in order to shift more freight around.
The hon. Gentleman asked about the joined-up nature of transport, with people, as he says, waiting in the cold sometimes for transport that may or may not turn up. I know he has not had long to look at the White Paper, but he only has to get as far as the foreword to find my talking about that exact issue. He asks about the way this will work with devolution. He will be pleased to hear that I spoke to his friend the Mayor of Manchester only yesterday, and I was pleased that he warmly welcomed the White Paper today. Page 41 has all that detail.
I know that Oppositions, almost for Opposition’s sake, have to nit-pick and find problems, but the reality is that the nationalisation that they would impose on this country would lead to fewer passengers, as it did last time; fewer stations, with stations closed in our constituencies, as it did last time under British Rail; track being cut, as it was before; and appalling sandwiches. We are not going back to the days of nationalisation. We can do better than that.
Oral Answers to Questions
Jim McMahon Excerpts(3 years ago)
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Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op) [V]
After much delay, the Transport Secretary has finally published Highways England’s review into smart motorways. The stocktake has revealed that over the last five years 63 people lost their lives, which is a significant increase on the figure given just over a year ago—38. Victims’ families and campaigners are crying out for common sense—and for action from the Secretary of State—recognising that the radar technology does not even capture broken down vehicles 35% of the time. As the legal challenges mount, will he publish the specific data comparing deaths on the hard shoulder of existing motorways with deaths on the lane that was previously a hard shoulder and is now used as a live running lane?
Grant Shapps
The hon. Gentleman and I, and the whole House, share similar concerns about the safety of our motorways. One of the first things I did as Secretary of State was to introduce the smart motorways stocktake. One factor we have to look at is the level of fatalities on both smart motorways and regular motorways. As I mentioned to the hon. Gentleman previously, from 2015 to 2019 there were 39 fatalities on smart motorways, but there were also 368 fatalities on regular motorways. It is very important that we look at all the questions he asked with regard to the data, which is why I have asked the Office of Rail and Road to analyse the data and provide reassurance that it can be trusted. When those figures are provided we can compare them to make sure we are producing the safest possible roads in the world.
Jim McMahon [V]
The victims’ families will want to know that action will be taken on lives that are avoidably lost and I am afraid that answer will not satisfy those families at all.
Moving on to our regional economies, the Secretary of State knows how important our regional airports are in providing tens of thousands of important, well-paid, decent jobs in our regions. Will he make sure the Government do far more than the standard schemes on business rates and furlough support to make sure that our regional airports not only survive but can thrive in the future—or does he believe the market will decide their fate?
Grant Shapps
First, on smart motorways I understand that it is the hon. Gentleman’s and Labour’s policy to close all-running lanes, which would create more traffic. The current estimate is that it would create 25% more traffic on other roads; that in itself would, we think, produce about 25 more fatalities per year. So I urge the hon. Gentleman to follow the work of the Office of Rail and Road to make sure that we do not create more fatalities, rather than fewer.
With regard to regional airports, the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that we need to support them. We have put £7 billion into protecting and supporting our aviation sector. I am slightly mystified, however, because if I understand it correctly, the hon. Gentleman’s current policy is to quarantine all traffic so that nobody could quarantine at home, which would do further damage to our regional airports.
National Bus Strategy: England
Jim McMahon Excerpts(3 years, 1 month ago)
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Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. I also thank those in the bus and local public transport industries for the work they have done, over the course of a very difficult year, to make sure that our country can keep on moving.
This strategy should have been used to revolutionise the bus industry, but I am afraid it lacks ambition and does not even touch the sides of the cuts and rocketing prices that passengers have witnessed over the past decade. It should have been used to ensure that funds were properly directed to deliver a radical transition to a zero-emission fleet—something that the Prime Minister promised more than a year ago—and to create new green jobs in the bus and coach sector, to give operators and manufacturers the boost that they so badly need.
Let us look beyond the headlines. The Secretary of State says that he wants buses to become more frequent, cheaper and greener. First, on buses being more frequent, the reality is that this Government have overseen the loss of 134 million miles of bus routes over the past decade, and some 3,000 local authority-supported bus services have been cut over the same period. In every year since 2010—year on year—passenger journeys outside of London have fallen. It is the Secretary of State’s Government who have made bus journeys less frequent in the first place. How will he ensure, specifically, that there are not just a few more services on routes that are already well served, but a reversal of the 3,000 bus cuts that we have seen over the past decade? How many of the 134 million bus miles lost will be returned by this investment?
On the second test, in respect of buses being cheaper, the Office for National Statistics has reported that in January bus inflation was up by 21% on the previous year. Although a price cap is welcome, the cost of transport is already forcing people off buses. What will the Secretary of State do to make sure not just that fares will not rise disproportionately in future, but that they will be brought down to a reasonable level that people can afford, so that they will choose to travel by bus?
The final test is for transport to be greener. It is more than a year since the Government promised 4,000 zero-emission buses, but they have not even started yet. That is nowhere near ambitious enough when we consider that there are 32,000 buses in England alone. Even with a one-to-one replacement, that could leave more than 28,000 buses that are not zero-emission. Incidentally, many of them will be serving areas that are being considered for clean air zones because of deadly levels of pollution.
It is a year since we were promised a transport revolution, and it has been a year of reannouncements. Although the pandemic can be blamed for some of the fall in passenger numbers we have seen, the Secretary of State knows full well that the past decade has really weakened the foundations of bus services in this country.
Let me turn to another announcement: council and operator partnerships. Councils throughout the country face a budget black hole of £15 billion, and this announcement, which throws in even more responsibility without funding in place, could weaken their position even further. Like many, I back the extension of London-style franchise powers throughout the country, and I sincerely hope that once the announcement is put into practice, that will be the reality for passengers throughout the country. I also support councils that want to do it themselves, which is why we back the establishment of municipal bus companies—incidentally, something outlawed by this Government in 2017. The Government have indicated that that may well be revisited, but my question to the Secretary of State is, why wait?
It is clear that we drastically need a bus service that is fit for the future, yet until we see those measures on the ground we cannot even begin to claim to be ambitious and to have a green bus strategy that meets the demands of local people and the immediate post-pandemic needs of the industry, or that addresses the huge challenge of stopping climate change and meeting our objectives. The real legacy of this Government is laid bare for all to see: the loss of key routes; rocketing ticket prices; and just 2% of the bus fleet zero-emission vehicles. It is on that record that the Government will be judged.
Grant Shapps
Predictably, the hon. Gentleman is not entirely satisfied. He said that the investment should have been bigger and that we should have been investing more in zero carbon, and he criticised many other aspects of the strategy. In fact, we did not even need to wait for the bus strategy, because he issued his press release to tell us all this ahead of time—before the strategy was even out and before he could possibly have known what was in it. I hope that he has now had the opportunity to read it. If he has, he will have seen that it is an extremely ambitious plan. It is the most ambitious plan to change our buses from any Government right the way back to the 1980s.
It is not as if the 1980s were the start of the decline; I think I am right in saying that we saw a decline in bus ridership from the ’60s onwards, from about 15.5 billion down to 5.5 billion. We know that people have switched to cars in that period of time, which is why this bus strategy is so ambitious and is trying to hold no punches in saying, “We need to realign the way we operate. We need to ensure that buses are more convenient and therefore more reliable. When they are, people are much more likely to take them.” As the hon. Gentleman rightly said, that is a formula that has operated very well in London under successive Mayors—although, I must say, it was expanded under the previous one—and has ensured that buses are clean and reliable, and that people do not even need a timetable. He asked about the reliability and regularity of services; that is what we want to get to. We also would not be putting £3 billion in if we did not expect, as the bus strategy says, to make buses more affordable. It is central to our vision that they are not just practical, but the affordable means of transport.
I hear what the hon. Gentleman said about greening up the bus network. I am as enthusiastic as him; he knows that I am—I drive an electric car and I want to see our transport system decarbonised. He mentioned that we announced a year ago our ambition to have 4,000 electric buses. He is absolutely right that that is what we wrote in our manifesto. As he would expect, we are delivering on that. The £120 million mentioned in the bus strategy today will go towards the first 800 of those buses. That comes on top of money that has already been invested by the industry in creating more electric buses. We are starting to see those buses on the road, including—I think I am right in saying—a couple of thousand in London, as well as elsewhere in the country. It is starting to happen and we are going to ensure that we meet our manifesto commitment of delivering 4,000 by the end of this Parliament.
Finally, the hon. Gentleman mentioned municipal bus services. I am not living in some world where I think there is only one way to do this. That is why we are talking about bus franchising and enhanced partnerships. He will be interested to know that the service in my area, though not a municipal bus operation, is actually run by the local university, the University of Hertfordshire, which owns a bus company called Uno. That is the kind of creative idea that we want to see developed by the national bus strategy. The hon. Gentleman’s local authority, every other local authority and all Members in this House will have the opportunity to ensure that their local area is able to deliver against the bus strategy to improve services for everybody in a way of which he would approve.
Oral Answers to Questions
Jim McMahon Excerpts(3 years, 1 month ago)
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Grant Shapps
My hon. Friend is absolutely right: sub-national bodies are extremely important in helping to bring together what can be quite different, disparate systems within a sub-regional area, to ensure that the transport is effective but also, as she rightly says, decarbonised. I see their role as being pivotal to delivering not only good transport but our transport decarbonisation plan.
Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)
Last week, I met some of the families of those who have died on smart motorways. I heard the pain and the devastation of those who have been affected by all-lane-running schemes. We last had an update on the number of deaths on smart motorways a year ago. Will the Secretary of State set out what the most recent number of fatalities on smart motorways is?
Grant Shapps
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about public concern about smart motorways, which, as I mentioned before, I very much share. I was the first Transport Secretary to order a review and a stocktake, which published a year ago yesterday with an 18-point plan. Tomorrow, I will have an update on my desk that I have ordered from Highways England, which will give me all the latest data. The last information I have is the 39 deaths between 2015 and 2019.
Jim McMahon
I appreciate the answer, but I do not think it is acceptable at all that the data appears to be at the very least a year out of date about a scheme that has significant public interest and when there are grieving families who want to know the true impact. I ask the Secretary of State to improve and to press Highways England to improve its data collection on that issue.
Yesterday, Highways England launched a campaign that encourages drivers to sing a Pet Shop Boys song as a reminder to pull into a refuge. That reduces it down to an insult, insinuating that drivers who became stranded were somehow careless. They were not. They were the victims of an ill-conceived scheme that still leaves people at risk today. What the families really want to know is, what is being done to ensure that there are no further fatalities? At the last Transport orals, I asked the Transport Secretary to pick up the phone and to reinstate the hard shoulder. Did he do that, and if not, why not?
Grant Shapps
First, the figures to which I refer are national statistics. My understanding is that they have to be quality assured, and it is beyond the control of the Secretary of State to quote figures that have not yet been checked. In answer to the hon. Gentleman’s last point about why we do not simply reinstate the hard shoulder— and I know that is his policy—I know from the work that has been carried out that the statisticians, who have worked very hard on this, tell us that per 1 billion miles travelled, which is the way roads are measured, there are about a third more deaths where there are hard shoulders, because one in 12 fatalities actually takes place on a hard shoulder.
As I mentioned before, I am the first Secretary of State to undertake a full stocktake and review. Tomorrow, I will have a report, and I will come back to this House and report on it very quickly afterwards. These are not new things; they were introduced in 2001 by John Prescott. However, I do absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman’s desire to see the problem resolved. It is important to know that, while I mentioned the 39 deaths on so-called smart motorways, at the same time there were 368 deaths on regular motorways, so it is very important that we take all of these steps.
On an education campaign so that people understand how to use all motorways, not just smart motorways, the £5 million campaign was one of the calls of the stocktake. Many of the victims’ families, including Meera Naran, who lost her eight-year-old son, have welcomed the fact that the Government are spending a record £5 million to ensure that people know what to do when they do break down.
Oral Answers to Questions
Jim McMahon Excerpts(3 years, 3 months ago)
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Grant Shapps
I think my hon. Friend, the Chair of the Transport Committee, is absolutely right. This has required a proportionate and science-based approach to where people for quarantine in hotels should come from, and that includes a red list of countries. I can tell my hon. Friend and the House that that list is available on gov.UK—it contains 30 countries. South America, South Africa and Portugal are primarily the areas and countries involved. I think it is very important that we do make this science-based, and this adds to the pre-departure testing and, of course, all the other measures we have put in place. We will hear from the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon) shortly, and I know he is going to explain why he called for quarantine to be lessened.
Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)
I am very disappointed that the Secretary of State would go so low as to repeat an untruth that was made by the Prime Minister yesterday, and a point of order has been submitted on that matter.
Mr Speaker
Nobody would deliberately say there was an untruth; somebody may not have had the right information, but it certainly would not be a deliberate mistruth.
Jim McMahon
Thank you, Mr Speaker. As we all know, 500 covid cases have been recorded at the DVLA offices in Swansea. There have also been worrying allegations that employees were coerced into turning off their track and trace apps or given warnings for taking time off sick, and those must be fully investigated. The evidence offered by the chief executive of the DVLA to the Transport Committee has, I am afraid, turned a crisis into a political test. Will the Transport Secretary explain why he ignored warnings about that issue, and why he essentially allowed a Government office to become a covid-19 superspreader? Will he confirm whether the chief executive of the DVLA still enjoys his full support?
Grant Shapps
I would like to clear up this confusion, because I do not think that a mis-statement should stand. I will quote from the hon. Gentleman on 3 July:
“Labour, like families and businesses up and down the country, are keen for the Government’s quarantine measures to be lessened,”.
That was the precise quote.
On the DVLA, I share the hon. Gentleman’s concern about the stories we saw in the newspapers this weekend, and I have investigated fully. Only one-third of the staff are currently working at DVLA. He might ask why any staff are working there, and the simple answer is that there are paper-based forms and submissions that are not being made online, and without them key workers and others would not be getting their licences. There are databases that, for privacy reasons, cannot be connected to from home, and that requires some people to go to the offices. A number of important steps have been taken, including work with Public Health Wales and setting up a new office for people to work in. No requests to turn off test and trace have been made by either DVLA or the Department for Transport. DVLA works under strict civil service guidance on sick pay and leave, and it must not diverge from that. I take the matter extremely seriously, and I will provide further written reassurances to the hon. Gentleman.
Jim McMahon
That opportunity for the Transport Secretary to confirm his support for the chief executive was not taken, which is interesting in itself.
Let me turn to smart motorways. This month, a coroner concluded that the lack of a hard shoulder on the M1 in South Yorkshire contributed to the deaths of two men, making a total of nearly 40 lives lost as a result of smart motorways and the absence of a hard shoulder. Even the former roads Minister, the right hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning), who introduced the programme in 2010, admitted that it was a gross public policy failure. Enough is enough. Will the Secretary of State commit, the minute this session finishes, to pick up the phone and issue an instruction to reinstate the hard shoulder on smart motorways? God forbid we will be here again reviewing more deaths if action is not taken.
Grant Shapps
It is tragic that anybody ever dies on our roads, and it is worth recalling that motorways in general are safer than most roads overall. Smart motorways were, and are, an issue that sparked a great deal of interest from me, and as the hon. Gentleman may recall, before he was in post last year I set up a review, a stocktake, which recommended 18 different measures, including spending more than £500 million to put in a whole series of measures to ensure that smart motorways are not just as safe, but safer than conventional motorways. That stocktake is now one year through, and I will soon return to the House to report on its progress. I know there is a lot of interest in that.
Oral Answers to Questions
Jim McMahon Excerpts(3 years, 4 months ago)
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Grant Shapps
The Government are committed to hydrogen as a technology. I recently announced the Tees valley as a hydrogen hub. We have invested £121 million into hydrogen innovation, including the hydrogen buses that are currently running in Glasgow.
Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)
The pandemic has understandably dominated the headlines, but we cannot forget that we are still in a climate emergency and that green, efficient transport must be the future. Transport is now the largest contributing sector to UK emissions, and air pollution contributes to upwards of 36,000 deaths a year. How we move goods in and around the country—from international incoming freight moving around our national network, to local deliveries—is important, particularly as last mile deliveries have boomed during the pandemic. But even before the pandemic hit, the number of diesel vans had doubled over two decades. What is the Government’s plan, above what has already been announced, to get air pollution down and to address the growing impact of last mile deliveries?
Grant Shapps
The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point, which is that 28% of all CO2 now comes from transport, and it is critical that we get it down. I thought he was going to go on to mention that since we last stood at these Dispatch Boxes, we have said that we are going to have a 2030 target for the end of sale of petrol and diesel cars, which will obviously help tremendously. That also includes diesel vans, which will be a very big contributor to assist in this, alongside the £2.8 billion we are putting in to help that switch take place.
Jim McMahon
With respect, that is just not ambitious enough. There are organisations that have really boomed in the pandemic. Online retailers—the big giants—are part of that, and they should be required to do far more to make sure that they bring down air pollution.
In a written parliamentary question to me, the Government admitted that the comprehensive spending review cut Network Rail’s enhancement budget by £1 billion—10%. At the same time, the order books for new greener aircraft have stalled. This all adds up to a very dismal approach as we get towards COP26 in Glasgow next year. Before that embarrassment comes, will the Secretary of State come forward with a comprehensive plan to decarbonise freight, which starts with reversing the cuts to Network Rail?
Grant Shapps
Right at the beginning of the pandemic—I can understand if the hon. Gentleman missed it—we published the document “Decarbonising Transport: Setting the Challenge”, which will lead into a transport decarbonisation plan that we will publish by the spring. In that, we will describe the many measures that we are taking to make the UK a global leader in cutting carbonisation and decarbonising the economy, not just through the 2030 pledge but through, for example, introducing 4,000 zero-emission buses, and much else besides.
Grant Shapps
My hon. Friend is absolutely right; while we are very keen to see the roll-out of e-scooters, and about 20 communities are already enjoying the benefits, it is also the case that we want to ensure that the regulation is right and that every single e-scooter is properly insured and built to the proper standards. That is why we are carrying out a very careful and cautious programme to roll them out, thanks to the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean), and we will be reporting back to the House what we learn from those trials and ensuring that the problems that my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Rob Butler) raises are not experienced elsewhere.
Jim McMahon
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. We have had—not for the first time—a statement being offered during topical questions on a matter that should have been brought forward as a statement to allow proper scrutiny, in particular on the plan for Christmas. Although it nods to many proposals that Labour has put forward, we have not seen the detail and we have not been given the opportunity to scrutinise. May I have your advice, Mr Speaker? Is it not more appropriate for the Government to bring forward a statement that we can have a proper debate around?
Mr Speaker
I do not know whether anyone on the Government Front Bench would like to answer that.
Oral Answers to Questions
Jim McMahon Excerpts(3 years, 7 months ago)
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Grant Shapps
My hon. Friend is right that the Orwell bridge is another key artery for Ipswich. I know that it is subject to ongoing work by Highways England that requires wind tunnel validation. I have been promised that that work will be completed by the end of September. From the Dispatch Box, I send a clear message to Highways England that I expect to see it on my desk.
Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)
Our transport industries have been devastated by coronavirus, but its frontline workers have kept the country going in difficult times. We owe them a debt of gratitude.
At the outset of topical questions, with 72 hours to go before the current rail franchise emergency measures agreements are due to expire, I expected the Transport Secretary to update the House. I am afraid my sheet is blank because no such statement, comment or indication followed. That is absolutely staggering. Are we to expect that, rather than something being reported to the House, it will come out over the next couple of days or the weekend, denying the House the opportunity to look into it? Will the Transport Secretary commit to making a statement to the House on Monday?
Let us be absolutely clear that in the last six months, with the current management agreements in place, while many parts of our transport sector have been denied the support they need, £100 million has been paid out to shareholders, many of which, by the way, are foreign Governments. That cannot continue in its current form.
Grant Shapps
The hon. Gentleman will know that the first emergency measures were worth some £3.5 billion to ensure that our rail sector was able to continue. I have already described how passengers are now returning to them and the work that is going on to make sure that they are safe to return.
As the hon. Gentleman points out, it is the case that the EMAs, as they are called, come to an end quite shortly. I do not think the House would realistically expect me to stand here and carry out those negotiations in public, but I reassure him that I will certainly return to make a statement in the House as soon as there is something to say.
Jim McMahon
There are just 72 hours left to go—it is literally last-minute. It is a timetable that would make Northern shy. I do not know what is going on with the Transport Secretary.
We know that passenger numbers have fallen to 7% of what they would be in normal times, yet rail fares are set for another increase in January. The average commuter will pay £3,000 for their season ticket, which is over £900 more than they would have paid in 2010. To encourage commuters back safely, will the Government commit to freezing fares and introducing part-time season tickets, as Labour has proposed?
Grant Shapps
I hate to play politics at the Dispatch Box, but it is worth reminding the hon. Gentleman that, under Labour, there were inflation-busting fare rises that added 4.9% during its time in office. Again, I want to make sure that we are speaking on the basis of facts. I will return to the House on the emergency measures.
It is not true to say, as I think the hon. Gentleman did, that the number of passengers is down to a single-digit percentage. As I said before, the number of passengers returning was at 42% last week. It is incumbent on all of us to demonstrate that the railways are safe; to take the railways from time to time, which I am sure Members on both sides of the House do; and to reassure people of the safety and efficacy of using the railways and all other public transport systems.
Aviation Sector
Jim McMahon Excerpts(3 years, 7 months ago)
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Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)
Before I address the debate, and with Mr Speaker’s permission, in my capacity as chair of the Co-operative party parliamentary group, I want to place on record my sincere condolences to the family and friends of Chris Herries, who passed away during the recess. She served the Co-operative movement with dedication for many years, most recently as chair of the Co-operative party. She was a woman of great character and strength who made a huge contribution, and she will be hugely missed by all in the movement.
I welcome the new Minister to his place, and wish him every success in his endeavours for the industry. I thank Members across the Chamber for what has been a good debate. It has probably been a long time coming, but nevertheless the volume of interest—59 Members, many of whom did not have the chance to speak—shows the strength of feeling about the impact of this issue on local communities.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Abena Oppong-Asare), the Chair of the Transport Committee, the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman), and the Backbench Business Committee for allowing this debate to take place—part of me wonders why the Government did not use their own time to allow it to take place a little sooner. I also thank the trade union movement—Unite, GMB, the British Airline Pilots’ Association, and others—for giving a voice to workers in the industry during a difficult time. Finally, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane) for his leadership in giving detailed support to the sector on our behalf.
We have heard a number of concerns that the Government need to address. First, the impact on jobs has been significant. We heard about that impact in the opening speeches, and from my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra). We heard about it from the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), and the former Transport Secretary, the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling). I hope he takes this in a good spirit, but if the current Transport Secretary is being given advice on performance from the former Transport Secretary, I would say we are in pretty grim territory. With respect, the issue of literally ordering ferries that did not exist gives me a bit of room to say that.
This is a serious issue, and for so long, Members have been crying out for concerted Government action to ensure that further job losses do not take hold. I am afraid, however, that the Government have been found wanting, because a lot of this was entirely avoidable. We heard in a powerful way about the impact on our regional economies if action is not taken. My hon. Friends the Members for Caerphilly (Wayne David), for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck), for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle), for Birkenhead (Mick Whitley) and for Luton North (Sarah Owen) are all profoundly rooted in their communities, and they fully understand the impact of these job cuts.
We heard from Members across the House the strength of feeling about British Airways and the way it is treating its workforce. I wondered whether some Government Members were becoming trade union officials at some points during the debate, and it was a pleasure to hear that unity. Such behaviour has been outrageous, with loyal staff with decades of service being treated in such a way—that point was made powerfully by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne) and the hon. Member for Winchester (Steve Brine).
It stands out that England and Wales have not been given the resource to provide business rates relief to airports, as has happened in Scotland and Northern Ireland. The Government should consider that—they should consider all options—and we must ensure that local authorities in those areas, particularly where there are rates retention schemes, are fully compensated for any intervention that may follow. That is critical.
Why is this sector important? It brings £22 billion a year into the economy. It is a critical part of the fabric of our economy. It supports 1.6 million jobs. We have all seen the impact of the cuts and what they have meant for staff: 4,500 jobs at easyJet; bases closing at Newcastle, Stansted and Southend; 12,000 jobs at British Airways; 3,000 jobs at Ryanair; and 4,500 jobs at Virgin Atlantic. The list goes on, including through the supply chain at Airbus and GE in south Wales. How many more? The warning signs are there.
We all knew that aviation would be profoundly affected, particularly because of its high operating costs and seasonality—and, of course, the quarantine measures that have been brought in. It will take longer to recover as a result, so in that context, why not extend the support? It makes complete sense, not least because the sector will be critical to our recovery. This country cannot get back to economic health if we erode the foundations of our economy. It is not that difficult to understand: we need action and certainty.
I do wonder: in respect of those who have already been given notice of redundancy, had the Chancellor given more confidence by declaring much earlier that he would extend the furlough scheme, would fewer people have been made redundant? A lot of this is about confidence and how long it can be sustained, given the quarantine uncertainty and the lack of sustained financial support. And it could get worse: some estimates put the potential job losses at 124,000. That is a significant impact.
It appears that everybody is calling for a sector deal for aviation—including, by the way, the Chancellor. It was not that long ago that the Chancellor reflected that the Government would have to make such an intervention. I am sure the conversation was had around the Cabinet table. So, where is the plan that we all—including the industry— were expecting, to capture all this into a sector deal?
On the funding that has been given to airline operators, why has there not been the conditionality to protect the loyal workforce? It is on the record, in the response to my written question that was published on 3 September: there was no protection for the workforce.
Why have the Government not done more to protect the staff at British Airways? Significant public money has gone into BA, but there is silence on the Government Benches. Why did the Government give £600 million to easyJet while turning a blind eye to £174 million being paid out in shareholder dividends—and when? When the virus was at its peak. Imagine saying there is no money and coming cap in hand, but paying out that amount in dividends. Where were the conditions to protect our environment and lead the charge to reduce carbon emissions? None of this is good enough. We need better and more concerted action from the Government.
And all that comes before we get on to quarantine. Before quarantine was introduced, more than 20 million passengers came into this country without any restrictions in place whatsoever. We were one of the last countries in the world to introduce either partial or full restrictions. Then, almost as a knee-jerk action, we saw the introduction of a 14-day, blunt-tool quarantine with almost no notice, causing absolute devastation to an industry already on its knees.
We were then promised air bridges. The idea of an air bridge is that two countries have an agreement about passenger transfer from one to the other. We did not get that: half the countries on the list had restrictions on British passengers on arrival. That is not an air bridge. This is why there was confusion: people were literally booking holidays only to discover that they would have to quarantine in the other country, potentially for 14 days.
There is now a refusal to take action on a pragmatic suggestion to have testing at airports, obviously with a test five days afterwards to make sure that the risk is captured. It will never be about one intervention by itself, so it is not good enough to say, “Well, you’ll only capture this percentage at the airport, and that wouldn’t be enough”; it is about the range of interventions that, taken together, put this country in the best possible position.
The Government need to do more. There will be more job losses if they do not take concerted action and have a coherent plan. A new Minister is in place now—step up to the plate, please.
International Travel
Jim McMahon Excerpts(3 years, 7 months ago)
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Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank the Transport Secretary for prior sight of the statement, although I should say for the record that it arrived only five minutes before it was due to be made. I am not sure that is quite in the spirit of things, and it might be worth taking that back to officials to make sure it does not happen again. However, I should say that he made the effort to give me a call today, which is appreciated.
The Government’s response to the covid-19 crisis has been nothing short of chaotic. At almost every turn they have lacked a clear strategy, and that failure has been acutely felt in aviation. For months, even when the virus was at its peak, millions of passengers were coming from all over the world without any restrictions placed on them at all. By the time restrictions were introduced, we were one of only a handful of countries in the world that up to that point had failed to take action to put them in place. It is this pattern of the Government being too slow to act, coupled with blunt interventions to overcompensate, that has dogged the handling of the pandemic right from the outset.
First, there was a blunt quarantine for all, bar France, but then France was back on. Then air corridors were on the table; then they were not. What we then saw was not really air corridors, air bridges or whatever name is given to them, but essentially a list produced by the Foreign Office, half of the countries on which had placed restrictions on British travellers going there—no travel corridor or air bridge at all. Now we are seeing countries coming and going off the list, with very little notice for those who have decided to go on holiday and incurred the cost of doing so.
It is all very well for the Government now to change position and tell people that they should travel with their eyes open. It was not that long ago that the Government were defending a very senior member of No. 10 for driving for an eye test, let alone going with eyes fully open. The British public are not stupid. They understand fully the pandemic and what it means to everyday life, but people work hard, and they are desperate to return to a sense of normality. For many, that one holiday a year is something they save up for and look forward to, but they cannot afford a 14-day quarantine to be imposed with very little notice.
We need to see when the data was really made available. We all know that localised and regional data is made available across Europe, so why was it not reviewed when the decision was made in Spain, for instance, to have the restrictions on the islands? The point was made at the time and the Government did not move, but it strikes me that the evidence base was in place, so it makes sense to publish that evidence in the House of Commons Library, so that it can be reviewed.
We need to make sure that we do not take this intervention all the time. It appears chaotic because it is chaotic. There will not be a single intervention in itself that will keep this country safe; it will be a number of interventions taken together that make us safe, and a key part of that is testing. Frankly, it is beyond belief that people arrive in this country from all over the world without any tests being carried out, either at the airport or five days later. It is important that we now carry out a full review, not just of quarantine in the very blunt sense that the Government approach it, but also to ensure that a proper test and tracking system is in place. In my town, the national contact tracing system has failed to get through to half of those it should have made contact with. When we have that infrastructure and such weak performance, it is little surprise that the Government are constantly going from one crisis to another.
Aviation is on its knees. The limited support offered by the Government has meant job losses all over the place, in a sector that was always going to take longer to recover than other parts of the economy. The Government knew that, but even with the money given over to the airlines, where are the conditions to protect workers’ rights? It is a scandal that hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money is being given out with no conditions to protect the workers at British Airways or easyJet, and the rights that they have built up.
Labour’s position is clear. We have set out a plan for a sectoral deal, with six key conditions, supporting jobs, tackling climate change and providing fair play on tax. It is important that the Government now come forward with a proper sectoral deal. We will absolutely work in partnership, in the national interest, but the Government cannot continue to go from one crisis to another, because key to beating the virus is maintaining public support. I have to tell the Transport Secretary that we are in real danger of losing that support.
Grant Shapps
I apologise to the hon. Gentleman for not getting the statement to him. I do not know why that happened, and I will make inquiries. As he mentions, I did call in advance, unrelated to the statement itself.
This is not a virus that any of us control, beyond the way in which we all behave individually and the extent to which we all have contact that we perhaps should not be having. It is easy to come to the Dispatch Box and be a professor of hindsight, saying, “You should have done this. You shouldn’t have done that.” If the hon. Gentleman could explain to me how he can find out that one week Jamaica will have three or five cases per 100,000 and the next week be breaching 20 cases per 100,000, even though the Joint Biosecurity Centre, Public Health England and all the other experts were unable to predict it, I would be the first to welcome that kind of detailed information and knowledge. It does not exist. I believe that no country in the world has combined as much information as has been pulled together here in order to work on a detailed island policy. In fact, it is difficult to think of another country in Europe that is doing more testing than the UK now, with testing capacity of a third of a million tests per day, going up to half a million today. I was speaking to my opposite number from France, who told me that there they would reach 400,000 tests a week—in this country, we can do that in a day and a half.
Our NHS test and trace system, combined with the passenger locator form, has enabled us to extract very specific data to know where infections are coming back from, and that has been extraordinarily useful. I reiterate—I cannot say it any more clearly, and I am grateful for the opportunity to say it again—that in these times when we travel we must accept that we have to go with our eyes open. I gave the example of Jamaica, but, unfortunately, the same thing exists everywhere else. I am not sure what the hon. Gentleman is suggesting. Is he saying that we should not have travel corridors at all and we should prevent everybody from travelling? That cannot be the case, because he tells us that he wants to support the aviation sector. In which case, some kind of corridors must be open, otherwise we would not be supporting it.
That is why we have pumped an enormous amount of money, via the British taxpayer, into supporting the aviation sector. Off the top of my head, 56,400 members of staff are using the furlough scheme, which will add up to well over £1 billion. There is a £1.8 billion fund, the Bank of England’s covid corporate financing facility, which has supported aviation-specific companies and there have been all manner of other funds, including the coronavirus job retention scheme, from which £283 million has gone to the aviation sector.
Of course we want the aviation sector to get going again. As I mentioned towards the end of my statement—I will come back to the House on this— testing is a part of that, but I also explained the complexity of testing on day zero. I did not hear whether that is what the Opposition Front-Bench team are calling for, but there are significant issues with testing on day zero in a manner that will not necessarily find those who are carrying the virus but that will convince lots of people that they are not. That approach is not the answer. We are working on all those things, and I encourage the hon. Gentleman to work with us, rather than score points from us, when everybody is trying to the right thing, nationwide, to beat this virus.