P&O Ferries
Natalie Elphicke Excerpts(2 years, 1 month ago)
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Robert Courts
I hear the anger and anguish expressed by the hon. Gentleman, and I know that he speaks on behalf of constituents and others he represents. I would encourage all employers in any event to speak to their hard-working, loyal, long-serving employees. I would certainly urge them to engage with the unions, which I hope would have been spoken to in advance in any such incident that would cause distress to workers and certainly in one such as this. I urge them to do that. On safety matters, this is still an evolving situation and there are clearly safety regulations that have to be applied and complied with in any case, no matter who is crewing a vessel. I would expect that to be the case. Clearly there will be no shortcuts as far as safety is concerned. We will continue to look across Government and speak to colleagues, and to uphold the rights that are clear in law to protect workers.
Mrs Natalie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the way in which P&O Ferries and DP World have acted is shabby, disgraceful and utterly unacceptable? They have mistreated 600 loyal workers in Dover and in addition to this, they have brought traffic disruption and put at risk the economy and the trade routes through it. Will he meet me to discuss what more can be done to hold DP World and P&O Ferries to account for their disgraceful behaviour?
Robert Courts
I thank my hon. Friend for speaking out so powerfully and forcefully on behalf of her constituents, who will be anguished, hurt and distraught at the news they have been given today. She speaks for them and I thank her for doing so. I will of course meet her; I will meet any hon. or right hon. Member from anywhere across the House to discuss any concerns that they or their constituents might have. My hon. Friend asks me whether I agree that the way in which P&O has behaved is unacceptable? Yes, it is unacceptable.
Oral Answers to Questions
Natalie Elphicke Excerpts(3 years ago)
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Grant Shapps
Yes, that is absolutely right. I have been working with Transport for the North and many others in consultation to sort out that fundamental problem, which is the bottleneck around the Castlefield corridor in and out of Manchester, which impacts on the entire northern rail service and beyond. The hon. Lady is absolutely right; we will be taking all those representations into account, and very carefully. Indeed, the rail Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris), would gladly meet her to discuss it further.
Mrs Natalie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
Rachel Maclean
Morning and evening peak services to Martin Mill, Kingsdown, Deal and Sandwich are currently operating. Passenger volumes are continually monitored, and all-day service provision will be reviewed in the light of passenger demand as lockdown restrictions are eased.
Oral Answers to Questions
Natalie Elphicke Excerpts(3 years, 3 months ago)
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Chris Heaton-Harris
I always try not to be overtly political in these matters, but under the last Labour Government, in the run-up to 2010, we had rises of 4%, 3.9%, 4.3%, 4.8%, and 6%. We have temporarily frozen fares in January and February so that people can look at what their travel plans might be as lockdown plans are announced. We have introduced all sorts of railcards and a whole host of discounts, and regulated fares will be increasing at the lowest actual rate in four years. But yes, the hon. Gentleman is quite right: we do need eventually to encourage people back on to our railways. If we are going to decarbonise, and if we are going to level up, we want to take people off the roads and entice them back to the railways, and we will have products to do that—but now, I am afraid, we also need to remember that the taxpayer stood by the railways with £10.1 billion in the course of this time, and they do need some money back.
Mrs Natalie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Transport (Grant Shapps)
We are working to support all those in Kent with traffic management, including the Kent Resilience Forum and the local authorities. I also pay tribute to the military and to NHS Test and Trace for the way that they helped to get things going again after the Christmas lorry crisis.
Mrs Elphicke [V]
Having worked so positively with my right hon. Friend and with the Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean), over so many months on the Keep Dover Clear strategy, it was extremely disappointing that Dover came to halt and a standstill and faced gridlock following France’s unreasonable closure of the border. Will my right hon. Friend reaffirm the Government’s commitment to keep Dover clear so that whatever happens at the port of Dover or is done by the French, people can get around to work, to school and in their daily lives?
Grant Shapps
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I pay tribute to her for the way that she has campaigned to keep Dover clear. She is right also in saying that before Christmas, President Macron decided to close the French border with no notice, meaning that we ended up with thousands of lorries gridlocking Kent. We had to put in place emergency measures, which have included at this stage having provided lateral flow tests to 120,000 hauliers in order for them to cross. I can report to the House that once they have crossed to the other side, the French have also been carrying out some tests. No one has come across with coronavirus as a result of the enormous programme we have put in place, none of which would have been possible without my hon. Friend’s tremendous assistance during those few days before Christmas while the military, NHS Test and Trace, the police and, not least, the local MP worked to clear the problem.
Road Traffic
Natalie Elphicke Excerpts(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Mrs Natalie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
It is with great enthusiasm that I rise to discuss the motion concerning traffic management and heavy commercial vehicles in Kent. I am the Member for Dover and Deal, and in the Dover area we spend many hours considering, deliberating and discussing heavy goods vehicles, light goods vehicles, port traffic, holidaymaker traffic, camper van and caravan parking, local traffic and all types of traffic management. That is because we are home to our country’s most successful and busiest port of its type, the port of Dover.
In an ordinary year, the port of Dover deals with £122 billion-worth of trade—about a fifth of the whole UK trade in goods—transiting 4.5 million vehicles and 11 million passengers. Daily, that means up to 10,000 freight vehicles and up to 90,000 passengers. The importance of the short straits route is unquestionable. It will remain the foremost route for trading, not simply because of its geographical convenience and proximity to the continent, but because we are just very good at what we do. Passengers are processed at the rate of one per second. The time it takes for lorries to be managed off the ferries is a matter of minutes. Building on that success, we are determined to expand and thrive. That includes an exciting freeports bid. We want to continue to pursue transit excellence and make the opportunities for investment, jobs and money real for our area. That includes new global trading routes between Dover and the world.
As the Member of Parliament for Dover and Deal, that means working with Ministers to ensure that the Port of Dover is successful and that our area as a whole is successful, too. At the heart of the regulations and what they are seeking to achieve is the need to ensure that traffic can transition smoothly to the Port of Dover and Eurotunnel and, through such active traffic management, ensure that local businesses and residents can get on with their daily lives. It is what we locally call the “Keep Dover Clear” strategy.
I thank the Minister for working with me and listening to the positive suggestions and ideas that have been developed with Councillor Trevor Bartlett, the leader of Dover District Council, and Councillor Nigel Collor, as well as Councillor Roger Gough, Barbara Cooper and Toby Howe and the whole team at Kent County Council, who have been working on these Kent-wide proposals. We have a meeting with the Minister and the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster later in the week to discuss the next steps and fine-tuning of our Kent proposals, and I look forward to discussing the progress of the “Keep Dover Clear” plans at that meeting.
In that context, I particularly welcome the second order, which allows controls on local roads. As a backstop measure, it is vital for people that local traffic can get around for school, for work and to see family and friends. The orders give control powers to enable that, but controls also need people to manage and enforce them. Will the Minister consider whether additional traffic control officers can be deployed at our local traffic hotspots, such as the Duke of York and Whitfield roundabouts, together with real-time traffic cameras to optimise the traffic flow for weeks and months ahead?
In the Dover area, we are no stranger to traffic congestion from time to time when there are hold-ups at the port, usually because the French are on strike. We have well-developed and tested mechanics to escalate and manage extreme traffic events in TAP and Stack. Those are now joined by Brock, which is enabled by today’s regulations.
Undoubtedly, we face a period of some uncertainty as we transition to new arrangements in the transit protocols. It is a matter that is not wholly in our hands. Just as French strikes can cause some of our most severe disruption, French border and trade controls may be similarly disruptive, or they may not be. The Port of Calais, like the Port of Dover, has been working very hard to prepare for 1 January 2021. I wish them both every success over the coming weeks as this vital project reaches this major milestone.
I pay tribute to the port’s collaborative work under Doug Bannister, the chief executive of the Port of Dover, in its contributing to transition planning and today’s regulations. Recently, we were discussing the relationship between port and town. Mr Bannister expressed the port’s position to me in these terms:
“We never forget how much the success of the Port of Dover links together with the support of the Dover community. In the weeks and months ahead please be assured that the strategic traffic management will have firmly in mind the needs of residents to get to work, school and to see family and friends.”
With stationary lorry traffic comes the important issues of air quality and littering. The regulations bring additional traffic controls to the A20/M20 route. Residents of Aycliffe, which is situated next to the final part of the A20 coming into Dover town, have long argued that the Operation TAP point should be further back along the M20. Air traffic quality monitoring is in place and has been for some time, but I ask the Minister whether consideration could be given to a review of the location and effectiveness of the air quality monitoring in the next period, alongside these instruments. Will she also ensure that the traffic management regulations that are under consideration today are matched with appropriate litter and sanitation facilities along both arterial routes? The A2 does not currently have the same degree of sanitation planning as the A20, yet the needs of lorry drivers stuck in a queue are very much the same.
Let me turn to the bifurcated major road strategy of the M2 and M20, which is at the heart of the traffic management strategy underpinned by these measures. Dover is one of the best positioned locations in the land. It has two major motorways, the M2 and the M20, which become the A2 and A20 for the last few miles into the town. This excellent road positioning will be further enhanced in due course by the lower Thames crossing. This is, in essence, a new national bypass that connects the north and midlands straight through into Dover. To make the best success of that opportunity, there is a parallel programme in the completion of the dualling of the A2. Dover is just so well connected, yet the last few miles into town on the A2 are merely single track at key points. I welcome the Government’s commitment to the A2 traffic management today and, indeed, the A256, which links east Kent as a whole. However, I urge Ministers during this period of post-transition work to reflect on whether it is, as I believe, in the national interest to accelerate a mission-critical last few miles of tarmac on both these key strategic roads. In welcoming these provisions, I ask the Minister to continue working closely with our area post transition; 1 January 2021 is the starting point of an exciting journey to come.
Finally, I strongly welcome the jobs and investment that a new border control point in Dover can bring in July next year. Will the Minister continue working with me and local residents to ensure that it is designed sensitively in order to take into account environmental and further traffic considerations—matters on which I know the Minister is already engaging with the community and council? These measures are a vital first step in ensuring not only that Dover is ready, but that we are best placed to make the most of the opportunities to come—for Dover and for our country as a whole.