Greater London Low Emission Zone Charging (Amendment) Bill

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Friday 22nd March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dr Johnson]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the work that he has done in this respect. He is entirely right: we will see today whether Labour Members are in favour of the workers or in favour of Sadiq Khan.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I am following the hon. Gentleman’s arguments with interest. In Bristol we have experienced the first year of a clean air zone, which was actually imposed on us as a requirement by the then Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the right hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey), because the Government had been taken to court by ClientEarth for being in breach of air pollution limits and therefore insisted that we should adopt the scheme in Bristol. If I have a chance to speak later, I will comment on how successful it was, but in any case that seems slightly at odds with the hon. Gentleman’s argument about local autonomy.

[Gareth Johnson]

I am grateful for that intervention, because it gives me an opportunity to smash the myth that the expansion of the ULEZ scheme has anything whatsoever to do with air pollution. If it was about air pollution, the Mayor of London would ban motor vehicles from going into London, but he does not want to ban them; he wants to make money out of them. If those motorists give the Mayor £12.50, they can drive all day long in London. He does not give a damn. Take my constituency in Dartford, for example: many people who previously used the Blackwall tunnel with ULEZ non-compliant vehicles are now having to use the Dartford crossing to get across the Thames. It is adding to pollution in areas such as Dartford, not removing it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lilian Greenwood]

Unusual as it is for the Minister to intervene, I think the point was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Clive Efford). When people from outside London drive into London, the costs of that in terms of health, and wear and tear on the roads, is borne by constituents here in London. It is not unreasonable for them to expect that those who benefit from everything that London has to offer, who travel into the centre causing congestion and poor air quality, should abide by the well-established principle that the polluter pays.

[Kerry McCarthy]

This goes back to what I was saying about the fact that the Government insisted that Bristol had a clean air zone. Obviously that will have a significant impact on people from Bath, for example, who drive down the A4 into my constituency, causing a huge amount of congestion and air pollution, but that is basically how politics works. I entirely agree with what my hon. Friend just said: the duty of politicians is to look after people in the patch they represent.

[Lilian Greenwood]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. I will come on to address how we best tackle the issue of air pollution and, at the same time, protect those who are impacted by this charge.

From 21 August last year, every Londoner with a non-compliant vehicle became eligible for a £2,000 grant to assist them in replacing their vehicle. I understand why people have said that £2,000 is not enough, but that has been provided despite central Government giving no financial support to the Mayor of London for it. Of course, if the Government are concerned about the impact—[Interruption.] If they are concerned about the impact of their clean air charging zones, they could have provided additional assistance—

--- Later in debate ---

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

As a Bristol MP, I suppose I have to apologise for daring to take part in a debate that is primarily about our capital city, but millions of our constituents visit as tourists and come here to work, and as a nation we all want to see it as a healthy, safe and pleasant place for people to visit, and to live and work in, regardless of which constituency we represent.

I want to challenge the hon. Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson), who brought in the Bill, for saying that this is not an air pollution issue. It is clearly not an air pollution issue from his point of view. We know why he has brought the Bill forward: because of the elections coming up on 2 May. It is a desperate last-ditch attempt to try to boost the Conservative vote—and I think we know how that will turn out. Perhaps some Conservative Members ought to be out and about, talking to voters on the doorstep, rather than taking up our time here today, if they really want to influence the result of that election.

The hon. Member, who has left the Chamber now, may not feel that ULEZ is an air pollution issue, but I very much feel that it is because low emissions are a public health issue. In my role as shadow Climate Change Minister, people often come and talk to me about air pollution as though it is primarily a net zero issue, and we have seen some depressing attempts to make net zero part of the anti-woke culture wars by saying that net zero comes at a cost. We saw the Secretary of State for Transport buy into the whole conspiracy theory about 15-minute cities at party conference, which is incredibly depressing. Reducing emissions from transport is obviously very much part of our ambition to meet net zero, but the immediate driver is the need to clean up our air.

We have heard mention of the switch to electric vehicles. It is obviously the long-term objective that we want to ensure that all the vehicles on our roads reach safe emission standards. It was therefore disappointing that the Government rowed back the 2030 ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles. The signal that that sent to the market and consumers was entirely counterproductive. Although initially there was some resistance to a 2030 target—rather than a 2035 target—within the car manufacturing trade, the trade then got with the programme and was critical of the Government for that row-back, because it affected sales. It had made the switch and was producing EVs; it is still bound by zero emission vehicle mandate, so it is making the new electric vehicles.

The most important thing we can do—this goes to the points about people not being able to afford cleaner vehicles that are compliant with the ULEZ—is to develop a second-hand electric vehicle market as quickly as possible. We do that by increasing new EV sales. The figure has gone down a bit, but it was the case that of new EV sales, 80-something per cent were fleet vehicles. We know that they then come on to the second-hand market pretty quickly. We have to bring down the cost of buying EVs—I can see the right hon. Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Sir David Evennett) nodding—and we do not do that by pushing the ban back to 2035; we need to bring it in now.

We also need action on EV charging infrastructure. I will say thank you to the Government for providing some new money for charging infrastructure in the west of England—I think that Bristol is the best place outside London in this regard—but what is lacking is a national strategy to put the infrastructure into places where the market will not meet the need because there is not the necessary footfall, or whatever the driving equivalent is, particularly in our rural areas that depend on tourism. Those travelling down to Devon and Cornwall can use Exeter services, but after that it is pretty difficult to find somewhere to charge a car.

As I have an EV and cannot charge it at home because I live in a block of flats, I welcome the public charging points in Bristol. I spend far too much time sitting in car parks doing Duolingo and practising my very bad Russian while charging my car. It is quite sad when constituents spot me doing that. Although we need more charging points in our cities, including London, this is national infrastructure and we must roll it out to other parts of the country.

As I have said, I believe that the immediate imperative is not reducing transport emissions with the aim of reaching net zero but dealing with air pollution, which we know has a significant impact on people’s health and on children’s health in particular. When I was at school there was just one girl in my class with asthma, but nowadays the majority of kids in any inner-city primary school probably have it. Children are more vulnerable in this regard because their airways are smaller and still developing, because they are closer to traffic fumes because they are small, and because they breathe more rapidly. They are also more likely to develop more serious lung conditions in later life—although of course asthma can be very serious.

Moreover, air pollution affects the lung development of foetuses in utero, and increases the chance of miscarriage. If a mother is exposed to a large volume of air pollution during pregnancy the baby is more likely to be born prematurely and with a lower birth weight, which is correlated with the development of certain health problems as a child grows up. I pay tribute to groups such as Asthma + Lung UK and Mums for Lungs, which has been doing some very good campaigning in my constituency, while St George Breathing Better has been pushing for school street schemes to restrict the entry of high-emitting vehicles, especially when children are going in and out of schools.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I do not know whether my hon. Friend has found this in her constituency, but in mine there has certainly been a significant rise in the incidence of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The response has not been particularly helpful in recent years, in terms of acknowledgment, proper diagnosis and speed of reaction to the problem; but that, too, relates to the air pollution issue.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I think that is true, and it is also connected with poor housing conditions. We have talked in this place before about the need to ensure that homes are fit for human habitation. A young boy tragically died recently because of the mould in his home. All these things are connected.

[Alex Davies-Jones (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

In the last few weeks I have been diagnosed with adult-onset asthma, which is on the rise. We know that 30% of cases are triggered by allergies, and that much of this is linked with mould in people’s homes. What my hon. Friend is saying—and she is making a powerful speech—goes to the heart of why we need to tackle this issue for all our constituents, whether young or old.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I suffer from hay fever virtually all the year round. I would have thought it would be worse in the countryside, but it is terrible when I am in London. I was in Paris in January and the hay fever took off suddenly because of the air pollution levels. Hay fever is not lethal in the way that asthma attacks can be, but it is a pretty grim condition to have to live with. It affects people’s ability to do their work and to study, for instance.

As I said earlier, the Government were forced to act on air pollution after being taken to court by ClientEarth, to which I pay tribute for its continuing efforts through the legal system to hold the Government to account in respect of their environmental targets. As a result of that court case, Bristol was asked to act. I have already made the point about the irony, perhaps, of demanding local autonomy in some cases and demanding not to be told what to do by the Mayor of London, but in Bristol the Secretary of State told us we had to do that.

[Guy Opperman]

The hon. Lady is making a fair point, but we have to recognise the issue of scale. In Bristol, the clean air zone is barely 2 square miles—it is about 1 mile by 2 miles—and specifically took into account individuals and businesses. The Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford does not seek to get rid of the congestion zone or the first ULEZ expansion, yet the second expansion of ULEZ, in contrast to Bristol’s 2 square miles, is approximately 600 square miles, at 50 miles by 50 miles. That is so monumentally bigger than anything contemplated in Bristol or other cities.

[Kerry McCarthy]

London has the Greater London Assembly, a Mayor with devolved powers and Transport for London, so this issue is looked at on a London-wide basis. There is an issue in Bristol with people coming into the city centre from places like Bath, but the boroughs are not so interwoven that we cannot see the borders between them, and we do not have the interconnectivity that London has. In Bristol, we were told that we had to bring air pollution levels within legal limits as quickly as possible. We went to great lengths with the modelling to deal with concerns about the economic and social impact. As the Minister said, making the zone as small as possible was one of the factors in that.

It is relevant to talk about the Bristol scheme because it shows what can be achieved by similar measures in London. The scheme came into effect in November 2022, and in January this year we had the first annual report on its effectiveness. It was judged to have been highly successful. The headline figure was that air pollution across all measured sites had declined by 9.7%. The success of the CAZ is measured by whether it lowers nitrogen dioxide levels below the legal limit of 40 micrograms per cubic metre. In November 2022, when the scheme was introduced, there were 18 sites across Bristol above the legal limit. Just 12 months later, that was down to just six zones. The scheme was particularly effective outside the Bristol Royal Infirmary and the Bristol Children’s Hospital, which are bang in the middle of the city centre. Air pollution was down by an incredible 26.9%. I defy anyone to tell me that such big improvements in air quality in areas where there are very sick and vulnerable people, including sick children, is a bad thing. It has been really successful.

[Lilian Greenwood]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that this is sometimes presented as a binary choice between motorists and everybody else, such as the children in the hospital, when these improvements are actually beneficial for everyone? One thing that came out of the 2018 report is that some of the worst air quality is inside vehicles, so motorists directly benefit from improvements in air quality.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I was on the Environmental Audit Committee and the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee at the time, both of which took part in that inquiry. It was difficult to bring those Committees together, but the inquiry produced a really good, significant report, which we should still pay heed to when we as House think about what to do on this issue going forward.

[John McDonnell]

There seems to be a focus on motorists, but there is now a multiplicity of electric vehicles. I have got one of them. I used to have an electric bike, but I now have an electric scooter—not a sit-down scooter. I find it particularly effective in my constituency, although to be frank my constituents do frown when I turn up as the MP because they think I should be delivering a pizza. There is a multiplicity of vehicle options that we can deploy to tackle some of these air pollution problems, but we need more incentives from central Government to develop that multiplicity.

[Kerry McCarthy]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely correct. I did have an e-bike; it was stolen from inside the Houses of Parliament. One would think that there would be nowhere more secure, but when the Queen was lying in state, whoever was acting as her security removed all the bikes and took off a £130 lock—presumably with an angle grinder or something—and my bike was not seen again. Try explaining to the insurance company that it was people from Buckingham Palace or from the Queen’s lying in state who took the lock off! That is another story, though.

My right hon. Friend is entirely right. I used to hold the shadow green transport brief, and e-bikes are hugely important in allowing people to do those longer journeys. I could not make it up the hills in Bristol without a bit of extra help from an e-bike, but when it comes to delivery vehicles, one of the issues is deliveries inside the areas covered by zones. If we can have hubs outside the city centres and electric vans or e-cargo bikes making those deliveries, that could have a huge impact. Obviously, everybody making food deliveries and similar things really ought to be using clean modes of transport.

I am conscious of time, so I will finish my point about the Bristol scheme. There were concerns that it would lead people to take diversions and increase pollution outside the clean air zone, but air pollution outside the zone has also been measured as down: it has reduced by 7.8%, because the CAZ has encouraged a modal shift among people. I appreciate that people cannot always afford to make that shift in vehicles, but it has happened.

Another concern raised by opponents was that the CAZ would harm the local economy and communities by discouraging people from coming into the city centre. In fact, the opposite happened: retail footfall across four major retail hotspots in central Bristol actually rose from the previous year. There was also an argument that people would become isolated and stuck at home because they could not afford to pay the £9 charge, but again, that was not the case: the number of journeys into or through the CAZ per month was higher at the end of the year than at the start of the scheme, and the percentage of compliant journeys rose every single month. That is what we want to achieve.

It is the same with the landfill tax, for example. That tax is not about raising money because lots of people are sending stuff to landfill. If a landfill tax is effective, the revenues go down and down, year on year. There is actually an issue with the fact that the tax is not keeping pace with inflation at the moment, but assuming it is effective, the revenues will dwindle—it is the behaviour change that we want to make happen. As I said, ideally we would not have introduced a clean air zone, but we have made it work. It is also worth noting that the Government take £2 from every £9 CAZ charge, which we would very much like to be able to spend in Bristol instead.

[Lilian Greenwood]

It is quite difficult to assess the effectiveness of a clean air zone, because it is not about whether vehicle numbers go down, but about whether those numbers are higher or lower than they would have been if we had done nothing. When thinking about the effectiveness of ULEZ in central London, for example, we need to model what would have happened if we had not had ULEZ, rather than just look at whether the numbers have gone up or down.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Exactly—there is very complicated modelling involved. Also, if we can use measures such as these to take some cars off the road, that increases the attractiveness of public transport, because the buses can get to where they are meant to be without being stuck in traffic.

[Guy Opperman]

Surely the hon. Lady is making an argument in support of the Bill—for having small congestion zones in the centre of cities, allowing the public transport to get to where it is meant to be, but not massive 600 square mile congestion zones such as the present expanded ULEZ?

[Kerry McCarthy]

I was thinking in the context of the right hon. Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Sir David Evennett) saying that he does not have a tube station in his part of Greater London, as though the only alternative to the tube is driving. London has a pretty decent bus system, but we need to make sure that people have that alternative.

Again, I am going to say something nice: we have had confirmation today that First Bus has received funding under the next wave of the zero-emission bus regional areas scheme to turn all of our buses into electric vehicles. We have been experimenting with biogas, but that funding will do an awful lot. We do have some clean biogas buses, and my right hon. and learned Friend the leader of the Labour party got to drive one on one of his previous visits to the city. He was like a little boy with a new toy, it has to be said—I think he greatly enjoyed it.

[Stella Creasy]

Given that the evidence shows that ULEZ has cut pollution in central London by almost half, the challenge that the Minister is presenting slightly misreads how people travel around London. As an outer-London MP, I am acutely conscious that people also drive within the borough to work, as well as between outer London boroughs. The idea that we would have the same impact on reducing pollution just by focusing on the centre misses the challenge that we are all trying to address. Nobody is saying that this is easy or that it is not controversial. I have the north circular running through my constituency, and I see the pollution. I see children and adults struggling with the consequences, and I am sure the same is true in south London. We have to consider how people travel around London to understand the best way of tackling these issues. It cannot just be theoretical. It has to be a practical model, does it not?

[Kerry McCarthy]

My hon. Friend is right, and she brings me on to my final point. Her borough of Waltham Forest hosts the mini-Holland scheme, which I have cycled around on an e-bike. Each week, the council’s transport lead takes people on a tour so that they can learn from the scheme. These local schemes can transform neighbourhoods by designing out some of the traffic and making them pleasant places to live, by building things like sustainable urban drainage schemes and areas where people can sit and talk.

A liveable neighbourhood pilot is just about to start in my constituency. It is important to engage the local community, to explain how it will work for them and to listen when they say how it might cause problems in certain areas. Although there has been some opposition, groups such as St George Breathing Better—which was founded by a group of parents whose children are suffering because of the city’s air pollution—are very much behind the pilot.

I return to the Secretary of State’s disappointing remarks about 15-minute cities. As well as bigger measures, such as ULEZ to address Greater London’s transport problems, we need to consider local solutions such as liveable neighbourhoods and school street schemes to encourage people to walk to school and work, and to make it as easy as possible for people to get around without resorting to their car. This should be about giving elected politicians the right to implement such solutions in consultation with the people they represent.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Thursday 21st March 2024 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

1. What recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of bus service levels in England.

[Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)]

8. What recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of local bus services.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Guy Opperman)]

The Government continue to provide unprecedented investment into buses. Since the pandemic, we have announced more than £4.5 billion of support for bus services in England outside London, including £1 billion recently reallocated from HS2 to improve services in the north and the midlands through Network North. Bus passenger journeys in England increased by 19% to 3.4 billion in the year ending March 2023, and we are seeing patronage increase in some areas.

[Kerry McCarthy]

It has been three years since the Government published their national bus strategy, but we are still waiting for the promised guidance on what constitutes “socially and economically necessary” bus services for which local authorities can provide subsidies. While we wait, people in Stapleton, in my constituency, are having to walk a mile to get to a bus stop to catch a bus to the city centre, because First Bus says it is not commercially profitable to run a service through Stapleton and there is no money to subsidise it. Last July, a Minister told me that guidance would be issued in this Parliament, which is clearly close to coming to an end. When will we see that guidance?

[Guy Opperman]

We particularly want to try to assist the hon. Lady and her local authority with the finances. The West of England combined authority receives £1.1 million every year through the bus service operators grant to subsidise socially necessary bus services. It has also been allocated in excess of £1.2 billion in city region sustainable transport settlements 1 and 2 to deliver transport infrastructure, which includes the bus infrastructure the hon. Lady requires.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Thursday 26th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call Imran Hussain—not here.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

T3. By the time we next meet for Transport orals, it will have been more than three years since the Government consultation on pavement parking closed. Are we ever going to see a Government response, or is it time that the Government came clean with disability groups and admitted that they have put this issue in the “too hard to do” pile?

[Mr Holden]

It is certainly not in the “too hard to do” pile—it is something we are looking at. It is one of the biggest responses we have had on any issue, with tens of thousands of responses, so it is only right that the Government take our time to ensure we get the position right. In the meantime, any local authority across the country can put in place a traffic regulation order and ensure those changes happen on a local level.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Thursday 13th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

T8. The buses Minister assured me a couple of months ago that he was prepared to work with the West of England Combined Authority to ensure “maximum flexibility” in how bus funding could be spent, but I am still struggling to find out how we can get the funding to reinstate commercially non-profitable but essential buses. Will he meet me so that we can try to get to the bottom of it?

[Mr Holden]

I would be delighted to meet the hon. Lady. I met recently with the West of England metro Mayor, who has had £21 million in BSIP funding, which we have made more flexible. To date, he has looked at schemes including the birthday month travel scheme. I can see that she might not be as interested in that as some of her hon. Friends, but I would be delighted to meet her to discuss what more flexibility we could introduce to preserve buses in her constituency.

Buses: Funding

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Wednesday 17th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Holden]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. In England we have found money for buses from within our budgets, so I definitely encourage other parts of the United Kingdom to do the same. In Wales we have sadly seen a far too ideological approach, including changing speed limits across the country at an estimated cost of £32.5 million in implementation alone and potentially with major economic costs knocking on. The 15% that he mentioned in Wales is on top of what has already been lost. Wales cannot be a model for the future, and the Welsh Government really should look to the support that we are providing in England, including those lower-cost fares for young people, to deliver for people across the country.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

When I speak to the metro Mayor of the West of England about the need to reinstate some of the bus services we have lost in recent years—bus services that might not be commercially viable, but are incredibly important for the people who rely on them to get to school, work, hospital and so on—he tells me that one of the problems is that often the money he is given is ringfenced or specified for particular purposes and he is not free to make decisions on how it is spent. Can the Minister assure me that, with the money going to the West of England Combined Authority today, I can go to the metro Mayor and say, “Please spend this on the buses in my constituency,” and he will be free to do so?

[Mr Holden]

The £2 scheme is England-wide, so that has been allocated by central Government. The cash going to local bus service operators—the bus service operators grant—is there for them to support their services. More broadly, the West of England Combined Authority has had £105.5 million. That is what it bid for, and it chose the schemes it wanted to do. I am prepared to ensure that there is maximum flexibility to preserve and enhance bus routes wherever possible. If the metro Mayor would like to speak to me further—I tried to call him today; he sent me a message to say that perhaps we would speak later—I would be very happy to speak to him about that and to have my civil servants work with him.

Electric Vehicles: Infrastructure

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd February 2023 Westminster Hall

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure, as always, to see you in the Chair, Mr Bone. I congratulate the hon. Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) on securing the debate. I could wax lyrical about the woes of being an EV car owner who is not able to charge at home, because I live in a block of flats, but I will resist the temptation to vent about that and stick to some of the facts.

As we have heard, we have seen a bit of a success story, with the number of EVs on the road exceeding expectations, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to charge. I have a lot of questions for the Minister, but one is about regulation and ensuring the reliability of charging points. Perhaps he could say something about that. In addition, to what extent should the charging point provider be blamed if the wi-fi is not working or there is no access to the premises? Where are we with that?

Thankfully, charging points are mostly more accessible, in that drivers do not have to join lots of different schemes, and they tend to work better. The downside is that there is very often a queue. If I am going to see my mother in Milton Keynes, I no longer just cross my fingers and hope that the charging point is working; I now also have to worry about whether someone will already be there charging for 45 minutes, with someone else queuing to charge for 45 minutes.

We are also seeing, with the Tesla points coming along, that service stations sometimes just do not have the power to keep all the points open at once. We need to ensure that the number of public charging points is keeping pace. It simply is not at the moment, particularly on rapid and ultra-rapid chargers.

In Bristol, we are ahead of most places other than London on having public charging points in places such as Morrisons car park or in parks and public places. That is probably better than trying to do on-street charging, with everyone fighting for one or two spaces by a lamp post. The problem with on-street charging is that if someone attaches their car to a charger when they get home from work and it finishes charging at 1 am, they are not going to go out and move their car to allow their neighbour to charge theirs. That is why I particularly like the quick chargers.

The Government set a target in March last year of making 300,000 public charging points available by 2030. That means we need about 30,000 to be installed per year. Last year, only 8,800 were installed. That is clearly not good enough, and the Government need to step up.

This is also a levelling-up issue. A year or two ago, when I held the green transport brief, I asked a series of questions to try to find out which local authorities had not applied for grants to install public charging points, but nobody would tell me; they just kept telling me which authorities had them. There are a number of pots of money, so I was trying to piece it all together, but quite a lot of councils were not mentioned anywhere. That is partly a capacity issue, because it can be quite difficult for some councils to do the analysis and just to have people whose job it is to fill in the forms and make the applications. There may also be an issue about political will and some places not seeing this as a priority, but that just means that provision is really patchy.

EV charging points should be treated—I was talking to National Grid about this this morning—as strategic infrastructure. This is not just about where people can charge their cars; it affects remote tourist areas, such as Devon and Cornwall. Five years ago, when I first got my EV, I thought I would go on a trip to Dartmoor to run it in, but I realised that there was one charging point in the whole area and that if that was not working, it would get a bit scary. Obviously, we want people to use public transport where they can, but if we are to keep tourism going down in Devon and Cornwall, we need those charging points—in Scotland, they have put some in on the strategic road up to the north—because, otherwise, people will not be able to make those trips any more, and that will have an impact on the local economy.

On grid connectivity, again, we need a strategic vision. There is no certainty about future funding for charging infrastructure. There is a big queue for grid connectivity—it is about 10 years—and all sorts of people have done the equivalent of putting their towels on sunbeds to reserve spaces. There is a whole separate debate to be had about how National Grid can prioritise applications for grid connectivity. However, I am told that motorway service stations are not joining the queue to expand their connections to the grid for rapid charging, because they are not sure what funding will be available in the future.

In the next seven years, we will need five times as much grid connectivity as in the last 30 years because of the move towards clean power and things such as EVs, but I just do not see a strategy. It is good that we have a new Department that is prioritising energy security and net zero, but we need to see a strategy for grid connectivity, for the sake of green investment, house building and EV charging points.

The £950 million rapid charging fund, first announced in March 2020, is meant to be focused on areas where it is less economical to put in charging infrastructure. As I understand it, it is still yet to issue any funds to projects that applied. It was announced nearly three years ago, so it would be good to know what is happening on that front.

The final thing I want to mention is manufacturing. I spent the first 40 years of my life in Luton, so Vauxhall Motors was very much a part of my upbringing, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Luton South (Rachel Hopkins) on all the work she does to push on that point. I want to know the Government’s ideological approach to support for our green industries, but particularly for electric vehicle manufacturing. We saw a pretty successful intervention in the market with the ban on the sale of new internal combustion engine vehicles by 2030 and of hybrids by 2035, although there are questions about the proportion of EVs that are being bought by fleets rather than for private ownership. We need to make sure that the second-hand market develops.

The ZEV mandate has been talked about, and there were plug-in grants, but there seems to be a move away from that sort of intervention. There is the issue of the cost of owning and operating an electric vehicle, alongside the cost of buying one; we are seeing electricity prices increasing and car tax being brought in for EV owners. It seems that the Government are stepping away.

What particularly concerns me is that we now have a very interventionist Government in the US—Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act is giving $369 billion a year to areas to create green industries—and the EU is rapidly following suit, but I do not see any sign of that here. I have asked questions of the Minister’s colleagues in other Departments; I asked a named day question on the very first day back in January and got an answer, in the end, that said, “We are very worried about it.” The approach of the Secretary of State for Business and Trade seems to be to tell Joe Biden off for being protectionist, which does not get us very far. I asked about this at Scottish questions today, and I do not think the Minister knew what I was talking about. We absolutely need a response to the Inflation Reduction Act to support our green industries, including our car manufacturing.

Transport

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Monday 29th November 2021 Ministerial Corrections

The following is an extract from the Westminster Hall debate on Decarbonising Aviation on 21 September 2021.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Are trade unions involved at any of the Jet Zero Council discussions?

[Robert Courts]

The hon. Lady makes a very good point, and I am grateful to her for it. I have a great deal of sympathy with people who ask for the membership of the Jet Zero Council. We have to have a finite number of people on the council, simply because it is a technical body and has to be able to produce results, but trade unions are involved in the sub-groups, which I will spend a moment talking about, particularly to put right some of the misunderstandings.

[Official Report, 21 September 2021, Vol. 701, c. 84WH.]

Letter of correction from the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Witney (Robert Courts):

Errors have been identified in the response I gave to the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy).

The correct response should have been:

Road Traffic Offences: Fatal Collisions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Monday 15th November 2021 Westminster Hall

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure, as always, to see you in the Chair, Mr Rosindell.

I am very pleased that the Petitions Committee managed to secure a slot for this important debate, fittingly at the start of Road Safety Week. I hope that we have been able to do justice to the topic this afternoon, for the sake of the families and friends of victims of driving offences, particularly the families and friends of Matt, Paul and Ryan, some of whom are here today.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Christina Rees) on a thorough exposition of the reasons behind the petition and why a change in the law is needed, and on going further and meeting the families and friends. It is really important—I say this as a former member of the Petitions Committee—that we do justice to the petitioners, which is not always the case in these debates. I hope that they feel we are at least speaking up for them today. It cannot have been easy for them to relive their personal tragedies in pursuing the petition, but I understand they felt compelled to do so to try to ensure that others do not have to go through the same hellish experience. My hon. Friend commended their courage and tenacity, and so do I.

Some people might recall the case of Kevin Duggan, who was killed in 1998 by a drink-driver. Anyone who has grown up in Luton, as I did, knows the Duggans. There are an awful lot of them. They are a big Irish family. Kevin’s father, Declan, campaigned for the law to be changed four years later to give doctors the right to take blood samples from unconscious drivers, because in the case of Kevin they were not able to do so. That shows how tenacity, of which he had huge amounts, and campaigning can pay off. I urge the petitioners to continue, because we have to do better. As we have heard today, far too many lives have been lost in road traffic accidents. In far too many cases, drink-driving is involved.

In 2019 it was estimated that between 210 and 250 people were killed in accidents in Great Britain where at least one driver was over the drink-drive limit. As the Labour spokesperson, I want to assure the petitioners that road safety is a priority for us. We have supported increasing the maximum penalties for the offences of causing death by dangerous driving and causing death by careless driving while under the influence of drink and drugs from 14 years’ imprisonment to imprisonment for life. We have also supported the introduction of a new offence of causing serious injury by careless or inconsiderate driving, fixing a gap left by previous legislation, which would set the maximum penalty for the offence on indictment at two years’ imprisonment.

I do not want to dwell too much on the contributions made by other speakers today, because it is important to allow the Minister time to speak. Rather than reiterating specific asks from the petitioners, and particularly from Cycling UK, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) and my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) more than did justice to, I want to ask about the full review of the road traffic offences framework that was promised in 2014 but never happened. I have pressed Ministers on that. They failed to provide a timeframe for the review, so will the Minister clarify whether a review will still go ahead and when? As my hon. Friend the Member for Neath said, the time to do it is now. There can be no excuse for further delay. Unfortunately, when it comes to road safety, at the moment the Government are steering us in the wrong direction.

Last week the Department for Transport introduced changes to driving tests, including the removal of the requirement to take a separate test to tow a trailer. My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth) campaigned on that after the death of a young child in her constituency.

The Labour party recognises the urgency of the need to expand testing capacity in the light of HGV driver shortages and the consequent damage to UK supply chains, but we are concerned about the safety implications of such changes. If they do go ahead, they should be temporary.

In the last week or so we have seen a damning report by the Select Committee on Transport on smart motorways. The shadow Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon), and I have met the families of some of those involved in deaths attributable to the lack of a hard shoulder. It is clear that the botched roll-out should be paused until appropriate safety measures are in place so that no other families have to go through the grief that they have experienced.

Lastly, as we have heard, cyclists are especially vulnerable road users. I will not go into detail, but cycling campaigners have raised concerns about the lack of deterrents for drivers fleeing the scene after collisions with cyclists; the inadequacy of sentencing; the car dooring offences; and the ability of drivers to defend their actions by labelling them careless rather than dangerous. I hope that the Minister will address those concerns and set out what consideration the Department for Transport, the Ministry of Justice and the Office of the Attorney General have given to strengthening legal protections. I would like to know in particular what recent discussions have taken place between the Department for Transport and the other Departments that I have mentioned.

I know that many victims of driving offences will be listening closely to the Minister’s response, so I hope he will offer some reassurances that the matter is a priority for the Government. At the moment, as we mark Road Safety Week, it does not appear to be.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Stephenson]

I thank my hon. Friend for that point—I hope he will bear with me, as I will come to that in more detail. Like other hon. Members, I know the strength of feeling in my own constituency, where dangerous driving is a top concern for residents.

Let me be clear: any death or serious injury on our roads is unacceptable, and our deep condolences go to victims and their families. My ministerial colleague Baroness Vere of Norbiton, the Roads Minister, has met families of victims of similar incidents, as well as MPs who are campaigning for their constituents, including my hon. Friends the Members for North Cornwall (Scott Mann), for North Warwickshire (Craig Tracey) and for Truro and Falmouth (Cherilyn Mackrory).

We understand the tragic circumstances that have led to the petitions and to the concern that, in some cases, something is perhaps not working with the law. Although we must do all we can to improve the safety of our roads, we must also be careful that we do not make any rash decisions that could ultimately make things worse, or create other unforeseen effects, in a rush to resolve problems with the way in which the law currently operates.

I will start by turning to the current offence of failing to stop and report. In the case of failure to stop and report, we know that in a small number of cases the failure to stop may be related to an event that leads to death or serious injury to another person, but we must not forget that in the vast majority of cases convictions for failing to stop involve low-level traffic incidents such as hitting a wing mirror on a narrow street. It is only in an extremely small number of cases that there may not be any other evidence to connect the death or serious harm with the driver who failed to stop, meaning that the only offence that they have committed is that of failing to stop and report.

I understand the concerns that have been raised about the matter, which has previously been brought to the attention of my Department. However, increasing the maximum sentence for failing to stop and report, even in a limited scope where there has been a serious or fatal injury, cuts across the basis for that offence. I must stress that the offence of failure to stop and report is designed to deal with the behaviour relating to the failure to stop; it is not provided as an alternative route to punish an offender for a more serious but unproven offence. Increasing the custodial sentence so that it is comparable to sentences for causing death by careless or dangerous driving, or including it in one of those offences, would represent a massive uplift in the potential sentence, for an offence that I remind hon. Members requires no evidence of a causal link between the failure to stop and the death or serious injury.

It must be remembered that where there is evidence that a driver has caused harm, there is already a range of other offences, including causing death by serious injury or dangerous or careless driving, with which the driver can be charged. In those cases, courts can treat the failure to stop as a factor that adds to the overall seriousness of the offending. That can result in the offender receiving a higher sentence. Where there is evidence that the driver knew about the incident and took steps to avoid detection, they can be charged with perverting the course of justice—a common law offence that already carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Does the Minister have any details on how often that has been invoked? It is one thing to say that they could be charged with perverting the course of justice. Does it ever happen?

[Andrew Stephenson]

It is unwise for Ministers to comment on prosecutorial or judicial decisions. I was reading this week about a case just outside my constituency where somebody who had failed to stop was charged with death by dangerous driving. We need to look at the suite of options for the charging authorities. Simply strengthening the failure to stop and report offence may not be the most effective way of ensuring the justice that I know many families are seeking to achieve.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Thursday 4th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

My hon. Friend is right. As the House is bored of hearing, I have been driving an electric car for the past two and a half years, and they are fantastic. People need to be convinced that they will be able to fill up and add energy when required, which is why we have put £2.5 billion into the process not just for grants for those cars but for the infrastructure itself.

My hon. Friend will be interested to hear that yesterday I was looking at a new design that will be unveiled at COP26 next week for an iconic electric charger that I hope will one day be as familiar as the black taxi, the red phone box and many other iconic street items in order to encourage that move.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

With COP under way, the Government should be sending the strongest signals on transport decarbonisation. On the one hand we have the chief scientific adviser telling people to fly less, as did a report from the nudge unit that the Government quickly deleted and suppressed, but on the other hand the Chancellor is cutting air passenger duty on domestic flights and the Prime Minister flew back from COP on a private jet for a supposedly urgent appointment that turned out to be a dinner for Telegraph journalists. Does the Secretary of State agree with the chief scientific adviser, or does he agree with the Chancellor and the Prime Minister? He cannot do both.

[Grant Shapps]

I will tell the hon. Lady who I do agree with: the Climate Change Committee. She may not be familiar with this, but it has said that its “overall assessment” is that our net zero strategy, launched this week at COP26, is “ambitious and comprehensive”. On the transport element specifically, the CCC says that it is very positive, rating our plans for transport decarbonisation as the highest in terms of planning; ours is the only sector with good plans and the funding, with incentives. So I hope she will accept that when it comes to transport we are doing everything we can.

Motorcycling: Government Support

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Tuesday 26th October 2021 Westminster Hall

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Robertson. I congratulate the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Bill Wiggin) on securing the debate. We have heard a lot of enthusiasm from the bikers in this room; it is clearly something that they feel strongly about. I confess that I have never had the opportunity to ride a motorbike.

[Bill Wiggin]

We can put that right.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I have been invited to Motorcycle Live in December in Birmingham to have the opportunity to ride some of the new electric bikes, so I may decide to do that. Former Member Hazel Blears, who I think is 4 feet 10 inches—I am not tall, but she is considerably shorter than me—was a keen biker, which shows that it can be done. Perhaps I should take up the challenge.

I will flag up a number of issues. The hon. Member for North Herefordshire talked about road repairs and presented a rather rosy picture of the amount of funding. It is important for motorcyclists that we keep roads in a good condition, but the money has been cut. The Government promised £1.5 billion to repair damage on roads across the country in the financial year 2020-21, but that was cut to £1.125 billion in the following financial year. Pothole funding was due to be cut by an average 23%, and overall total spending on roads maintenance would drop by an average 22%.

We can compare that with the massive Government road-building programme. It is important that we should not just be looking at building new roads, but at making sure the roads we have are kept in good condition. The insurance industry has raised that point with me. The vast majority of the claims it pays out are caused not by driver error but by the condition of the roads.

As it stands, it will take 11 years and £11 billion to clear the backlog of potholes. On National Pothole Day in January this year, the Chancellor tweeted,

“enjoy #NationalPotholeDay before they’re all gone...”

He was boasting about how much money is going into addressing the problem, but we could be marking National Pothole Day for quite some time to come at the current rate. Perhaps we will get some good news about road repair funding tomorrow.

I agree with the hon. Member for North Herefordshire that safety is incredibly important. The hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) spoke about electric motorbikes, which I will come to a bit later. He also spoke about the smell of petrol and his colleague, the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson), mentioned the noise. Those things are part of the thrill, as motorcycle organisations have said to me. I totally get that, but when a cyclist is in that little space in front of the cars at the traffic lights, sometimes people on motorbikes do not act as responsibly as they could and are not aware that bike users are more vulnerable than them. For the cyclist, they have a bigger vehicle pushing in front of them, and the smell is not great. The sooner we can move to cleaner vehicles the better.

[Ian Paisley]

The hon. Member makes an important point. Once electric bikes become the fastest bikes, whether that is for motocross or as a track bike, that will become the pinnacle of the sport and that is where people will ultimately move. Encouraging tech design will create safety and environmental change.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention.

On the points made by the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker), there is a really interesting discussion to be had. The modal shift is important. Why have we not moved to moped use in the way that, say, France or Italy has? It is not as commonplace in this country—perhaps it is the weather. There is an interesting debate about road space and how we use it. We are starting to see e-scooters on our roads, there are more people cycling and a lot of town planning wants priority bus lanes. All of that raises questions about who gets to use priority lanes, whether we have segregation, who is entitled to use the segregated lanes and what that means for cars—what road space is left for cars? I think we will be addressing those points more and more in the years to come.

Finally, I want to talk about the need to decarbonise—an issue that the industry has contacted me about. Support for the industry so far, in terms of decarbonisation, has been pretty limited. The plug-in motorcycle grant, which helps support the sale of low-emission bikes, is £1,500 at the moment—less than for cars. The funding is guaranteed only up to March 2023. I was going to ask the Minister whether the Government plan to keep the grant beyond that date or, as is the case with the car plug-in grant, to reduce it year on year, but as we have the Budget tomorrow, I suspect I know what her answer would be. Could she answer this question instead? In the transport decarbonisation plan, the Government promised an action plan for zero-emission light-powered vehicles by the end of the year. We have not seen any sign of that yet. Will it be published before the end of the year?

The 2030 ban on new petrol and diesel vehicles was announced back in November 2020. We are still waiting for the publication of the promised consultation on a 2035 ban on petrol motorbikes. There are also currently no Government targets for regulating the CO₂ produced by motorbikes, unlike for cars and vans. That raises a few questions. Why are the Government allowing polluting petrol motorbikes to be sold until 2035, when there is a 2030 date for petrol cars? Will the Minister give an update on when those consultations and so on will be published?

It is really important that the transition to zero-emission vehicles is smooth. I welcome the Government’s recent announcement that they will introduce a zero-emissions vehicle mandate, but there was no mention of motorcycle manufacturers in the summary, despite the 2035 commitment to banning new petrol motorbikes and the suggestion that plug-in grant support may end sooner than that, in 2023. Will the Minister explain whether the Government want to offer the same support to motorcycle manufacturers as they are to EV car manufacturers, through the electric car mandate, which will encourage them to make the shift to producing cleaner vehicles sooner? If not, why are motorcycle manufacturers being left out?

I will conclude on that point because I am keen to hear from the Minister. It has been good to hear people’s enthusiasm today. We certainly want motorcycles to continue on our roads, but they do need to move with the times. I hope the Minister will tell us more about how they can do that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Trudy Harrison]

I hear what Members are saying about proportionality, and I am sure that will be registered and acknowledged in forthcoming strategies.

The action plan will cover the innovation in urban logistics and personal mobility, while setting out the steps needed to build new opportunities for powered light vehicle industries. One such opportunity is reforming last mile deliveries, which has the potential to create healthier and more liveable places by removing toxic fumes from the most congested areas. We are committed to transforming the last mile into an efficient and sustainable delivery system, and we will work with industry, academia and other stakeholders to understand how innovation in the L-category sector can benefit the UK delivery market. That will include publishing a toolkit later this year to support local authorities in reducing carbon emissions from transport, recognising the important role that local areas will play.

I feel that the greatest impact will be achieved by committing to phase-out dates, just as we have done for polluting cars. That is why we have committed to consult this year on a phase-out date of 2035, or earlier if a faster transition appears feasible for the sale of new non-zero-emission-powered two and three-wheelers and other L-category vehicles. I recognise that the L-category sector encompasses a wide range of vehicle types and uses, so we will aim to find the most appropriate regulatory solution for each one—it will not be one size fits all. Any proposed phase-out dates for the sale of new non-zero-emission L-category vehicles will reflect both on what is needed to hit net zero by 2050, and on the technology currently available in the sector, but we will be ambitious.

It is right that Britain shows global leadership when it comes to L-category decarbonisation. By consulting on and deciding phase-out dates as soon as possible, we are clarifying the direction of travel for the L-category industry in the UK, giving vehicle manufacturers and consumers time to adapt.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Will the Minister give way?

[Trudy Harrison]

I am afraid that I will not, simply because of time.

I am particularly proud of this country’s motorcycling heritage, which has been mentioned, and how we have pioneered the way for great motorcycle manufacturing. Our motorcycling legacy lives on and continues to evolve in the 21st century. One example is Project Triumph TE-1, which is leading the way in creating electric motorcycling capability. The project is supported and co-funded by the UK Government, and I am proud of Triumph and other British businesses for driving innovation and enhancing the credibility and profile of great British industry and design.

In conclusion, I am once again very grateful for the opportunity to speak positively about motorbikes, motorcyclists and the history and heritage of the industry. I look forward to the future, including the decarbonisation of that vital transport sector, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire for the opportunity to speak in this debate.