Oral Answers to Questions

Judith Cummins Excerpts

Thursday 21st March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jesse Norman]

In 2010 the funding levels that we inherited from the previous Government stood at about £2.50 per person, and they are now about £7.55 per person. We would like to get that spending a lot higher if we can, as we fully agree about the merits and benefits of cycling and walking. However, funding is now three times the amount that we inherited from the Government who had governed for 13 years.

[Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab)]

4. What recent assessment he has made of trends in the number of journeys taken by bus.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Local bus journeys remain central to transport choices, accounting for around 59% of all public transport journeys. Numbers of local bus passenger journeys in England have been falling since the 1950s, and they fell by 1.9% in the year ending March 2018.

[Judith Cummins]

Bus services provide essential independence and freedom to people with disabilities, yet disabled bus passes allow free travel only after 9.30 am, despite the fact that most people start work before then. Will the Government commit to providing the funding necessary to lift those time restrictions on disabled bus passes?

[Ms Ghani]

The hon. Lady raises an important point. Bus passengers and disabled passengers have a close link, and it is right that someone’s ability to jump on a bus is about not just economics but social inclusion. That is why we launched the inclusive transport strategy last year. The concessionary bus budget is around £1 billion, which supports about 10 million passengers. That funding is concessionary and down to local authorities, which have very different packages up and down the country.

Rail Infrastructure Investment

Judith Cummins Excerpts

Thursday 17th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) on securing this debate through the Liaison Committee. I also congratulate her and the whole of the Transport Committee on the excellent report that we are considering today. I intend to focus my remarks on section 3 of that report, which concerns regional disparities in rail investment and their effect on economic rebalancing. I will also touch on the section relating to the next rail investment control period.

It has been a bad year for our railways in many respects. Along with other hon. Members, I recently took part in a debate on rail services in Yorkshire. The unanimous conclusion of those who took part in that debate was that passengers had been badly let down in recent months. Of course, a large part of that disruption was due to the timetable change introduced last May, but I am also convinced that historic and continuing under-investment in our regional railway infrastructure is a major cause of passenger dissatisfaction.

The report makes it clear that regions outside London and the south-east have not received a fair share of rail investment for years. That is especially true across the north of England. There has been persistent, long-standing underfunding of transport infrastructure in our region, which figures from IPPR North repeatedly show. Over the past few years, London has seen a £326 per-person increase in public spending, while the north has seen an increase of less than half the size—of just £146. Transport spending per person remains approximately twice as high in London as in the north, as it has been for the past decade. There are also significant disparities within the north. Last year, the north-west saw an average increase of £158 per person in transport spending, and yet spending in Yorkshire and the Humber fell by £18 per person—more than any other region.

As the report shows, this historic unfairness is set to continue. Analysis of the infrastructure and construction pipeline shows a stark gap between London and the rest of the country. In future spending, £1,900 per person is planned in London from 2017 onwards, compared with £400 per person in the north. The Secretary of State has attempted to brush aside that analysis, but it is clear that significant disparities are set to continue unless decisive Government action is taken.

The report also correctly describes why this regional funding gap persists. The current transport scheme appraisal method used by the Department for Transport and the Treasury will always favour London, as it prioritises congestion reduction and journey-time savings. That approach actively disadvantages less economically buoyant regions, and it must change.

I cautiously welcome the Government’s rebalancing toolkit, but it is nowhere near enough. It is also disappointing that the Government have not listened to calls to make the toolkit mandatory. Regional rebalancing must not be an optional extra, but should be at the heart of any transport investment decision making. For that to happen, the Government must commit to wholly revising the way that rail investment decisions are made. I urge the Minister to work with colleagues in the Treasury to revise the investment decision-making process so that places that have had a legacy of under-investment are treated more fairly in the future, which means putting economic regeneration and regional rebalancing front and centre.

As the Committees argue elsewhere in the report, past difficulties in delivering infrastructure projects must not discourage future investment. Areas that have seen a legacy of under-investment urgently need the projects to go ahead, so as we look to the next control period, the Government must make investing in regional rail infrastructure a priority.

I turn to Northern Powerhouse Rail. Bradford, like other towns and cities across the north, urgently needs that high-speed rail link to meet growing demand and to fulfil our economic potential, and investment in NPR should include a Bradford stop in the city centre, where the benefits will be felt by the greatest number of people. The Minister may recall from our conversation his supportive disposition to a Bradford stop on the NPR line. I must re-emphasise in the strongest possible terms the importance of that being a city centre station. The city of Bradford’s rail connections already operate under the disjointed legacy of two stations; adding a third station outside the city centre risks repeating the mistakes of the past. To be plain, a parkway station for the NPR outside the city centre would deliver neither the connectivity nor the economic regeneration that the city needs. It would represent an enormous missed opportunity. Independent research indicates that a Bradford city centre station would cut journey times and increase capacity. More importantly, it would add £15.5 billion to the north’s economy and generate an additional 15,000 full-time jobs across the Leeds city region.

NPR is the future we need, but more must be done right now to improve the punctuality and reliability of existing services and to banish outdated rolling stock. In West Yorkshire the public performance measure for rail operators, which combines figures for punctuality and reliability as a single measure, paints a depressing picture of almost universal decline in 2018-19, compared with the previous year. Performance on the Calder Valley line, which has a station stop in my constituency, was significantly worse than the year before. In some months, performance was almost 30% worse.

The train operator Northern recently admitted that it has not yet begun withdrawing the despised Pacer trains, which helps to illustrate the point further. As everybody knows, they are basically a 1980s bus body on rails. The firm blamed last year’s delays on electrification work, which contributed to the timetable and service chaos in May 2018. That is simply not good enough for my constituents or for businesses based in my constituency of Bradford South.

The Transport Committee’s report must be a wake-up call to the Government. We need action to rebalance our economy, boost our regions and give places such as Bradford the transport infrastructure that is fit for the next century.

Train Operating Companies: Yorkshire

Judith Cummins Excerpts

Wednesday 19th December 2018 Westminster Hall

[Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Cheryl. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Paula Sherriff) on securing this important and timely debate. It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson). Nobody here needs reminding how terrible a year this has been for rail passengers in Yorkshire and across the north. Since the introduction of the timetable changes in May, we have seen what the Transport Committee rightly called a

“period of intensely inconvenient, costly and, on occasions… potentially dangerous disruption.”

Northern Rail, which serves Bradford on the Leeds-Bradford, Airedale and Wharfedale lines, has provided especially poor service. Since the new timetable was introduced, an average of 2.5% of trains have been cancelled, and 4.6% have operated in our region with fewer carriages than planned. On a typical day, about 100 to 200 passengers are left behind at stations in Yorkshire. They are stranded and are late for work and critical appointments that they need to get to. Unfortunately, despite the criticism that the train operating companies and the Department for Transport have come under since May, we have still not had a significant improvement in service levels. In fact, The Yorkshire Post found that rail punctuality is even worse now than it was in the immediate aftermath of the timetabling change. In November, only 62% of TransPennine Express services and 67% of Northern services arrived on time. Eight months on from the initial problems, it is shocking that the industry appears not to have got a grip on this issue. Passengers in Bradford and across Yorkshire have experienced almost a year of delays, cancellations and disrupted service. Despite that, fares continue to rise above inflation. It is simply not good enough; we deserve better.

As the Office of Rail and Road reported, the responsibility for the fiasco must be shared between the train operating companies, Network Rail and the Department for Transport. Each failed to prepare for the changes, and there was a clear lack of leadership at all levels.

It is also worth looking at the longer term causes of the crisis. There has been a persistent and longstanding underfunding of transport infrastructure in the north. As well as addressing the immediate problems with the performance of train operating companies, the Government must commit to revising the way that rail investment decisions are made. As a start, they should commit to working with Transport for the North to deliver Northern Powerhouse Rail as a priority. Bradford, like other towns and cities across the north, urgently needs that high-speed rail link to meet growing demand and fulfil our economic potential. It is only by investing in rail infrastructure, planning for future timetable changes and ensuring that passenger interests are at the heart of our rail system that we will prevent a repeat of the unacceptable service we have seen in recent months.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend referred to the work of the Transport Committee, which looked at timetabling and rail infrastructure investment. Does she share my concern that, according to the figures for the national infrastructure and construction pipeline, planned spending on transport per capita in Yorkshire is set to be the lowest of all the regions? It was not only lower in the past, but will be lower in the future—in 2017-18 and 2020-21?

[Judith Cummins]

I share my hon. Friend’s concern, and we all share her outrage.

[Mr Sheerman]

It is really simple: deep into the 21st century, towns and cities in Yorkshire should be connected by a regular, good, safe service that everyone can depend on. How can it be that my constituents and I cannot get to Bradford easily from Huddersfield? Why has the line between Huddersfield and Wakefield been closed, with a tremendous impact on those cities? Will my hon. Friend join me in going on those trains and waving banners?

[Judith Cummins]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. It is an immense frustration for me, as a Bradford MP, that we are not properly connected with the rest of the north. That causes problems and limits my constituents’ learning, development and job opportunities, which are crucial to a city like mine.

Road Safety

Judith Cummins Excerpts

Monday 5th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean). Road safety is an issue that I repeatedly raise in the House, and I welcome the opportunity to debate it in the Chamber this evening. We all know what a vital issue it is, and it affects many of our constituents, often tragically. In West Yorkshire, 815 people were killed or seriously injured in road traffic incidents last year. In my constituency, more children are killed or seriously injured on our roads than almost anywhere else in the country. I know that it is ambitious, but we should aim to eliminate road deaths and serious injuries entirely in the UK. Vision Zero seeks to do exactly that, and I urge the Government to look into that approach.

Clearly we will need a wide variety of tools in order to achieve that, and one crucial part is a tougher criminal justice approach. It was for this reason that I warmly welcomed the Government’s announcement in October 2017 that they would bring in longer sentences for drivers who killed through dangerous or careless driving, as well as the announcement of a new offence of causing serious injury through careless driving. I pay tribute to all those who campaigned for this change, including the road safety charity Brake, but we are now over a year on, and the Government have still not delivered on their commitment. In fact, we are no closer to those changes being made.

Ministers are now claiming that the changes will be incorporated into a review of cycle safety, but I have to say that that is completely unacceptable. It is right, of course, that the Government should look at the laws around cycling in order to make it safer for all road users, but it is not good enough that already-announced changes on sentencing are being rolled into the open-ended process. I really hope the Minister will listen and set out exactly when parliamentary time will be available to bring these changes into effect. The delay is adding to the suffering that families face when they lose loved ones.

Turning to another criminal justice issue, we must ensure that the exceptional hardship rule, which allows drivers to keep their licence even when they have reached 12 points, is not abused. Data from the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency show that more than 200 people in Bradford alone successfully used that argument last year and escaped a ban. There are 11,000 drivers across Britain who still have their driving licences despite passing the 12-point limit. We are allowing unsafe drivers to remain on our roads, and ultimately we are putting people at risk. Anyone who reaches 12 points should expect to be banned. Anything less makes a mockery of our road laws.

Of course, our laws are an effective deterrent only if they are properly enforced. For this we need well-resourced police forces that are able to patrol our roads, proactively tackle dangerous driving and bring those who break the law to justice. It is for this reason that the cuts to frontline policing caused by a reduction in funding from this Government are extremely worrying. On top of the 30% cuts in West Yorkshire since 2010, police forces across the country are facing an additional £165 million unexpected pensions bill, which will lead to even fewer officers. Prior to the Budget, I raised the issue of police pensions with the Prime Minister, and I wrote to her about it on 26 October. Unfortunately, I have not yet received a response. We cannot keep people safe on the cheap, and we cannot keep roads our safe without sufficient resources. If the Government are serious about making our roads safer, they must properly fund police budgets.

Finally, I would like to mention graduated driving licences, which allow new drivers to build up their driving skills and experience gradually, in well-defined, structured stages. There is clear evidence that a graduated licence system would make our roads safer, by reducing the number of young people involved in car accidents. Drivers aged 17 to 24 currently make up only 7% of drivers, but they represent nearly 20% of the people killed or seriously injured in car crashes. To conclude, I would like to return to that Vision Zero ambition to eliminate road deaths and serious injuries in the UK entirely. Ambitious, yes, but we owe it to the families who have lost loved ones to do everything we can to reduce deaths and make our roads safer for all.

Oral Answers to Questions

Judith Cummins Excerpts

Thursday 5th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

My officials are currently considering what it would take to move the project forwards, and I have had discussions with the combined authority. The potential route sits alongside a growth area in West Yorkshire, so I am personally taking an interest in the scheme, which is now subject to careful assessment.

[Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab)]

In recent weeks we have seen endless delays, cancellations across the north and a report from the Select Committee on Transport that confirmed a bias against northern regions in rail investment decisions, and we now hear reports that the trans-Pennine electrification will be scrapped altogether. Will the Secretary of State now respond properly to the One North campaign and commit to giving Transport for the North the full powers and funding it needs to deliver the necessary changes?

[Chris Grayling]

I am afraid that this is a total misnomer. First, the part of the country that will receive the highest Government spending per head on transport over the next five years is the north-west. Spending is higher per head of population across the north than it is in the south. Secondly, as I have already announced, we will start the £3 billion trans-Pennine upgrade next spring, which will substantially rebuild the railway line between Manchester, Leeds and York and deliver much better services to passengers. It is long overdue.

Rail Timetabling

Judith Cummins Excerpts

Monday 4th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

We are working extremely hard to make sure that this does not happen again. We have to deal with the short-term problem. We also have to make sure that this is not repeated with the December timetable change or future timetable changes. Where major investment leads to a major change in services, we cannot have a situation where that causes chaos on the network again.

[Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab)]

Does the Secretary of State understand the real human cost of this fiasco and the fact that every disrupted journey represents chaos for our constituents and losses for our businesses? He talked in his statement of major failures and holding the industry to account, but when will he take responsibility and hold himself to account over his repeated and major failures?

[Chris Grayling]

My job is to do everything I can to make sure that the industry gets itself back on the straight and narrow, and that is what I will do.

East Coast Main Line

Judith Cummins Excerpts

Wednesday 16th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

The travelling public are the most important people in all this. Tomorrow, and indeed on 25 June, they should notice no difference to the timetable or the tickets; they can buy tickets in advance. The difference is that from that point on they will notice a change to the trains, which will become LNER livery trains. Later this year, there will of course be brand-new LNER livery trains, providing a much better experience for the travelling public—and a more reliable experience at that.

[Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State said in his statement that there is “no suggestion of either malpractice or malicious intent in what has happened.” Does he agree with me that what has happened smacks of a pattern of failure and incompetence, and that he, as the Secretary of State, should take responsibility?

[Chris Grayling]

Clearly the Government have to act in a situation like this, and we have done so: we have acted decisively. The reality is—I stand by what I said—that there is no malicious intent. A major corporation has made a major mistake, and it has paid a price equivalent to a fifth of its market capitalisation, which is a big cost for any business.

Oral Answers to Questions

Judith Cummins Excerpts

Thursday 18th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I absolutely understand the importance that my right hon. Friend places on transport links in Essex, which is why we are investing both in the county and across the country. Highways England is progressing the A12 improvements, which are now going through the consultation and design stages. On the railways, a number of improvements are required to the eastern main line, and the rail loop is one of those under consideration.

[Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab)]

T2. Does the Minister agree with me and the Transport for the North draft strategic transport plan that there is a compelling economic case for a northern powerhouse rail network stop in Bradford, both for my constituents and for the wider region?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Jesse Norman)]

We are very closely studying the report by Transport for the North—a soon to be statutory body—and we will look at that scheme alongside others.

Rail Franchising

Judith Cummins Excerpts

Wednesday 10th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab)]

The subject of this Opposition day debate clearly highlights how this Government are not running the nation’s vital transport infrastructure in the interests of the many. We have heard how the franchise model is failing the east coast mainline. The taxpayer bail-out of the franchise by the Government is yet more evidence that our railways would be better off under public ownership. Let us not forget that the east coast main line franchise returned over £1 billion to the Treasury and was the best-performing operator on the network when it was in public hands. It seems that this Government are happy to reward failing companies for mismanaging our railways.

This is not the only way that this Government are failing to deliver on transport policy, as the north of England has had a raw deal from central Government with regard to transport spending. Planned central Government spending per head of population on transport infrastructure for the next four years is £726 for Yorkshire and the Humber, versus £1,083 for London and the south-east. Meanwhile, money is frittered away on filling the pockets of private companies—money that would be better spent modernising the ageing infrastructure that is holding back places like my home city of Bradford. What is more, my constituents also have the pain of the 3.4% increase in fares this year, with average fares rising more than three times faster than wages—a slap in the face, and in the pocket, on top of years of insult from unfair underinvestment.

These figures are not acceptable, and have far-reaching consequences for the economy of the north of England and for the prosperity of my constituents. It is Whitehall’s failure to recognise that point that so enrages me. The north gets trees planted along the M62 while London gets Crossrail—hardly fair. An independent study of the north’s untapped potential set out how new investment, including High Speed 3, could unlock up to £97 billion and create 850,000 new jobs by 2050, with a stop in Bradford bringing in an annual boost of £53 million to the local economy and at least £1.3 billion for the whole region. The party of government made a manifesto promise about electrification of the trans-Pennine rail route ahead of the 2015 general election, but we are still waiting.

A radical rethink is needed from this Government to end the failed franchise model, to bring our railways back into public ownership and to invest properly in transport in the north of England. We in Bradford will not be fooled, satisfied or fobbed off with crumbs from the table.

Transport in the North

Judith Cummins Excerpts

Monday 6th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) for securing this important debate.

Our nation’s transport infrastructure deservedly occupies much of this Chamber’s deliberations. Transport has been a frequent topic of my contributions, and it will remain so until the north of England gets the improved transport connectivity it so desperately needs. Modern, efficient transport infrastructure is a catalyst to growth. Improved regional transport connectivity is the key to unlocking prosperity in my home city of Bradford, and it is essential to fostering wider prosperity across West Yorkshire and the whole of the north of England. It is fundamental to addressing the regional differentials in our economy.

To put it bluntly, the north has had a raw deal from Whitehall. The huge potential in my home city of Bradford and in other towns and cities across the north of England is being held back by creaking infrastructure and a lack of transport investment. It is quicker to travel from London to Paris on Eurostar than it is to travel by rail from Liverpool to Hull. That can and must change, and investment is the key.

Public spending per person on transport in the north of England over the past 10 years was less than half that in London, and that differential is set to get much, much wider. If the north of England had received the same per person as London over these past 10 years, transport, economic performance and prosperity in the north would be in a very different position, and our nation would be better for it. That is central to our debate today, as are economic growth, opportunity, new jobs and prosperity for the north and the nation.

As the Chancellor appreciates, the UK is woefully underperforming compared with other advanced economies when it comes to productivity gains. Without improved productivity, our communities in the north will become incrementally poorer. When the Government talk about fixing this country’s productivity problem, their response must address regional differences. It would be a travesty indeed if average productivity nationally was raised but the improvements continued to be centred in the London and the south-east, rather than being distributed evenly across the UK. That would be a huge missed opportunity, but I fear that is exactly where the Government are heading.

I say that because while Yorkshire’s M62/M606 improvement is under threat on value-for-money concerns, Highways England has committed to multi-million pound investments in the south-east and, in particular, in London. It is systematic bias, and it is at the very heart of the problem. Because of the regional differences in economic performance, these value-for-money judgments on transport infrastructure are skewed. They favour London and are self-reinforcing: London gets investment, its economy benefits and so future investment there looks yet more attractive. This must stop. The Government need to get a better lens through which to view infrastructure investment in the north: one that sets out to solve the problem of regional difference, not one that reinforces it. They need a system that directs investment to the service of rebalancing our economy across the regions.

To make that a reality, all tiers of government must have a programme of strategically planned, long-term and targeted investment. A vital first call on the Government is that they reaffirm their commitment to the trans-Pennine rail electrification.

[Ian Mearns]

What my hon. Friend is saying gets to the nub of the whole problem. The Department for Transport has to make economic development a priority as opposed to the alleviation of congestion; if it is about the alleviation of congestion, the money goes to London.

[Judith Cummins]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, with which I wholeheartedly agree.

As I was saying, this vital infrastructure project promises not only improved journey times, connecting the economies of the north, but, equally importantly, increasing capacity to support the easy movement of labour across the regional economic area, providing more people with better access to good jobs. The experience of tens of thousands of hard-pressed rail passengers each day is that extra capacity is urgently needed in the north. Many have turned their backs on the railways, as their experience has been so abysmal. That experience goes a long way to explaining why the road traffic flow between Bradford and Leeds, two close neighbours, is by far the highest in the country. Any strategic, long-term and targeted investment plan must recognise that, increasingly, different regions of the UK need a tailored approach, but it must also put regions in the driving seat—with powers and with responsibilities. The north is willing to step up, but the Government need to help and trust the region to get the job done.