Oral Answers to Questions

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Thursday 8th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

The Government remain committed to GBR. As I have said, we have already announced that the HQ will be in Derby. Many of the benefits can be achieved without legislation, and we are getting on with them. It is worth noting, based on statistics published this morning by the Office of Rail and Road, that we still face a massive challenge with the rail industry: leisure is now much more important than commuting and business; and passenger revenue is still 28% down on the pre-pandemic level. A successful railway needs to change to reflect passenger demand, and that is exactly what this Government are going to deliver.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Transport Committee.

[Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)]

In the absence of legislation, will my right hon. Friend consider setting up GBR as a shadow authority. That could, for example, end the unsustainable practice of costs sitting with one part of the industry and revenue with another. The rail industry has a great appetite to move forward, so will he consider something like a shadow GBR?

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[Mr Harper]

The hon. Gentleman will know that we have set out a significant amount of rail investment. We will be investing £40 billion overall across the transport portfolio over the next two years, and we do have to make choices about how to spend that money sensibly. The Labour party is making unfunded spending pledges, with £44 billion on rail and, interestingly, nothing on buses or on roads.

[Mr Speaker]

We now come to a person who will have done 40 years tomorrow, I understand. I call Sir Edward Leigh.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Under the old British Rail, we used to have a direct train to London from Grimsby and the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) through Market Rasen. I have been campaigning for that train to be reinstated for 40 years—ever since I was elected as a Member of Parliament. Sometimes I wander down from my home in the wolds and wait forlornly on the platform at Market Rasen, but the train never comes. Will the Secretary of State oblige an old campaigner and give us our train back, please?

[Mr Harper]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his service in the House. This campaign may be coming to a successful conclusion. He has been working closely with the Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman), and we hope to be able to implement the change in the next timetable update. My hon. Friend is working carefully to ensure that none of the things that have hitherto stopped it will prevent it from happening this time. I hope that there will be a successful conclusion.

[Mr Speaker]

Make sure he’s not closing the station. [Laughter.] I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)]

I associate the Opposition with the Secretary of State’s comments. We send our thoughts and prayers to the victims of the terrible tragedy in India.

Over the past year, passengers have faced total chaos on our railways. Cancellations rose to their highest ever levels. Strikes have disrupted countless journeys, while the Transport Secretary still refuses to sit down with the unions. The fourth franchise in five years has just been brought into public ownership. And now we hear that the lucky few who actually manage to get a train will not have the luxury of using wi-fi. The Prime Minister might not be aware of this, given his preference for private jets, but will the Secretary of State at least admit that our railways are fundamentally broken?

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[Jesse Norman]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right that active travel—cycling, walking and wheeling—is probably the single biggest health intervention a human being can make in their lives as a choice of habit. She is right to highlight the importance of supporting it, as the Government have—more so than any previous Government. There are a range of pots, including city region sustainable transport settlements, the road investment strategy 2 and levelling-up fund moneys, into which authorities can bid. Many have done so and will continue to do so highly successfully. That provides a continuing opportunity for them to benefit from these levels of increased funding.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

May I associate myself with the condolences that have been sent to those in India?

In 2021, Ministers set themselves four targets to measure progress in active travel uptake. Three years on, how many of these targets are they confident of meeting? I can tell Members that it is not a single one, according to the Government’s own assessment revealed by the National Audit Office yesterday. The NAO report also uncovered a staggering cut to active travel funding of £166 million, which, by the Government’s own workings, would cost the taxpayer more than £700 million in the long run. Will the Minister finally come clean and confirm whether he will be slashing this vital funding by 60% next year, too—yes or no?

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[Huw Merriman]

I was very pleased to sit down very recently with my hon. Friend, people from HS2 Ltd and Buckinghamshire Council to go through some of the matters that were on his agenda. I know that this is the latest case that he has written to me about. I will look into the detail to ensure that we both have the correct facts, and the next time I am up near Steeple Claydon, which, as he knows, happens on a regular basis, we can perhaps take a look ourselves.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

I, too, convey my condolences to the families of the victims of the harrowing rail disaster in India.

The Government’s management of HS2 could hardly be worse: the budget has ballooned out of all proportion; we are already years behind on the launch of services; the merry-go-round of Ministers has created chaos; and the project at Euston station may never see the light of day. The six-monthly update to Parliament is already months late. We are none the wiser about the promised excellent alternative to the cancelled Golborne link, and we have been waiting years for the review into the best way to run HS2 to Leeds after this Government betrayed the north by scrapping the eastern leg. It appears that trickle-down economics has been replaced by trickle-down incompetence. Rather than the usual woolly ministerial responses of “coming soon to a station near you” and rather than responding to all of these failures, can the Minister answer just one simple question: when will the Leeds area study finally be published?

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[Mr Harper]

The hon. Lady should recognise that, as I said in answer to the previous question, the North East Combined Authority and the North of Tyne Combined Authority were awarded £117.8 million to deliver their ambitious bus service improvement plan. That is the mechanism that we have set up for local authorities to have ambitious plans to work with bus operators to deliver better services for constituents, properly funded from central Government. I hope that they use that revenue and those powers to deliver the improved bus services that she wants.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Simon Lightwood (Wakefield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am pleased that the Government’s latest bus deal lasts longer than the usual three months, but as ever, there are winners and losers. Last year, both Southampton and Swindon applied for zero-emission bus funding. They got nothing. They applied for BSIP funding, and how much did they get, Secretary of State? Nothing. Last month, every council finally received something, but Southampton and Swindon got barely £1 million between them, amounting to a pathetic £2 per person. Can he explain why areas such as Southampton and Swindon have got so little to fix their broken bus systems?

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[Jesse Norman]

Yes.

[Mr Speaker]

We now come to the SNP spokesperson.

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[Michael Fabricant]

I thank my hon. Friend for his answer —[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I was shouting to the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham) not to come past the hon. Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) when he was in the middle of a question. Try again, Mr Fabricant.

[Michael Fabricant]

Take 2. Mr Speaker, you might disagree with the Minister’s answer and say that the reliability of Avanti is still not that good. Nevertheless, my question is about services from Lichfield Trent Valley station. I wonder when services can be restored whereby we have a decent service on Sundays, particularly early Sunday evenings, both down to Euston and to the north. That used to exist before covid, but those services are no longer on the timetable.

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[Mr Harper]

I am able to tell my hon. Friend that officials in the Department are already working with Chiltern on looking at how we deal with those issues. I know that the rail Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman), will be delighted to meet him to give him more detail of the work already under way so that we can deliver a better service for his constituents.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

Due to the UK’s out-of-date and inefficient airspace, designed in the 1960s, the average flight from Luton to Jersey emits 24% more carbon than necessary. Modernising UK airspace is the quickest and most effective way to save carbon in the UK aviation sector. The process is so slow and bureaucratic that it is going to be the 2060s before this is sorted. Is it not time the Secretary of State stepped up to the plate?