High Speed 2

Debate between Nusrat Ghani and Victoria Prentis

Wednesday 10th July 2019 Westminster Hall

[Ms Ghani]

I know that NDAs are a particularly sore point for the Labour party right now, but we regularly engage with local authorities, sharing work at the early design stage with them, which is why they use NDAs, especially during the planning phase. They are used to protect commercially sensitive and personal information. I will take the point about using taxpayers’ money on the chin. We need to ensure that we are always using taxpayers’ money properly and transparently. We always hold HS2’s feet to the fire on all of those issues. I am happy to put all of this in writing, and to answer in writing any further questions that the hon. Gentleman has.

[Victoria Prentis]

I do not want the Minister to be in any doubt that worries about NDAs come from only one side of the House. On the Conservative Benches, we are equally concerned about the governance of HS2. NDAs are a real concern to us in getting to the bottom of what is going on.

[Ms Ghani]

As I mentioned, NDAs are used to deal with commercially sensitive or personal information. This is a large project involving a large chain of people and companies. We will put into the public domain any information that we can. We will respond to all queries from Members of Parliament within the allotted time.

Arguments have been made for and against HS2. I want to explain why this Government are committed to HS2. Every time the House has voted on this project, the Government have always won with a stomping majority. Our current infrastructure is 150 years old. It is an overstretched Victorian network. Passenger numbers have doubled in the past 20 years, and on key routes in the west coast inter-city corridor they are set to triple.

We have an overused and overcrowded railway, which is also one of the oldest. With HS2 in place, we can deal with the pressures on express trains, freight trains and slower local commuter services, which are already operating at peak capacity. That is just one of the reasons why HS2 is crucial: to solve our chronic capacity problems. I was intrigued by the argument that there will not be as many passengers using our railway network in the future. I hope this Government will not make the argument for people to stand still, but will encourage people to go out for social and work reasons.

HS2 is a new dedicated railway for fast inter-city express services, no longer encumbered by the inevitable inefficiencies associated with mixed-use lines, which will also free up huge capacity on the existing railway for more local trains, including for services to places such as Milton Keynes. In fact, 70% of the jobs created across our economy will be outside London, bringing prosperity to the north and the midlands, just as the first railways did, and not only to the cities on the high-speed line. HS2 trains will call at over 25 stations across the UK, from London to Scotland. It has already created 9,000 jobs and 200 apprenticeships. We expect that to rise to 30,000 jobs at peak construction, including over 2,000 new apprentices, many of whom will be trained at the national colleges in Doncaster and Birmingham.

HS2: Buckinghamshire

Debate between Nusrat Ghani and Victoria Prentis

Monday 29th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Ms Ghani]

This project is to bring together north and south and east and west; we cannot have HS3, or any other name that they want to give an east-west line, without HS2. There is only one budget—£55.7 billion. The Minister with responsibility for trains has said that there is substantial investment in the east coast main line. The hon. Lady talked about wanting to increase capacity, and that is exactly what HS2 will do.

[Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)]

As you know, Mr Speaker, our constituents also feel that they are being trampled under the great white elephant of HS2. My question relates to the difficulty I have in getting straight answers out of HS2 Ltd. I had a meeting in my office on 1 April in which I am afraid I was slightly bad-tempered, which is not my normal manner; I apologised, but this gets right under our skin. I have had no follow-up from that meeting, although I was promised real information. I echo the calls of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Dame Cheryl Gillan), because we need to pause this project while we get answers to important environmental questions.

[Ms Ghani]

If my hon. Friend was indeed enraged, all I can say is it will have been a very good meeting. I am sure HS2 will be listening to our exchanges. I know that a meeting took place on 1 April. I had hoped it would be productive. If it has not been, I will hold a meeting with her and work out what we can do to take this matter forward. She has some challenging cases to deal with and has made really good representations to me and HS2 Ltd. It is because this project will have an impact on the environment that we are doing everything we can to mitigate it, from planting over 7 million trees to ensuring no net loss in biodiversity, which are all things she is passionate about.

Inclusive Transport Strategy

Debate between Nusrat Ghani and Victoria Prentis

Thursday 25th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ms Ghani]

This is a very important issue on which I gave evidence to the Committee just a few weeks ago. People’s interpretations of shared spaces are varied. There is no agreement, even within the community that lobbies for people with visual health problems, on what the minimum size of a pavement should be. That is why we will undertake a consultation with Transport Scotland to get some data on what works and what definitely does not work so that we can update our guidance by the end of next year.

[Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)]

We, too, have a problem with shared spaces, particularly outside a local primary school. Will the Minister ensure that the needs not only of people with disabilities but of smaller and older people in our communities are included in the consultation so that all voices can be heard? Many of us are very worried about these shared-space ideas.

[Ms Ghani]

That is an incredibly valuable point. When talking about shared spaces, we may think about those who are using wheelchairs or those with visual health problems, but not about mums or parents with buggies, let alone older people. That is why the interpretation of shared spaces is so varied. There is some valid concern that when shared spaces are imposed in their totality, when there is absolutely no infrastructure in place, the situation can become incredibly complicated. We all have anecdotal evidence of where it is or is not working, but we absolutely need to collect the data so that we can ensure that the guidance is the best that it can be.

As I mentioned, we will work with Transport Scotland to take on board all the feedback. We are working with our stakeholder groups to make sure that we have a much more informed decision on shared spaces, particularly with regard to controlled crossings and kerbs, and dealing with people with a variety of disabilities. It is only right that towns should be designed in a way that works for all, and the Government are determined to work with local authorities to ensure that this happens.

I have written a letter jointly with my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing to clarify the approach that should be taken to shared-space schemes. The letter makes it clear that the pause applies to schemes with relatively large amounts of pedestrian and vehicular movement such as high streets and town centres, but does not apply to streets within new residential areas or the redesign of existing residential streets with very low levels of traffic. Whether to improve individual schemes is a matter for local authorities, which need to ensure that they are compliant with their duties under the Equality Act 2010, but we hope that common sense will prevail before the updated guidance is issued.

The strategy includes a commitment that the Department will provide £2 million of funding to enable more Changing Places toilet facilities to be installed at our motorway service areas. Having access to these facilities can be genuinely life-changing for some families and allow them to make journeys that would otherwise have been impossible. We will shortly announce further details on how we intend to allocate this funding, and we will be working in partnership with Muscular Dystrophy UK. This should allow the majority of motorway service stations across the country to have Changing Places toilets by the early 2020s, compared with fewer than a fifth today.

The Department announced shortly after the publication of the strategy that it would extend the eligibility criteria for the blue badge scheme. The new criteria will extend eligibility to people who cannot undertake a journey without a risk of serious harm to their health or safety, or that of any other person such as young children with autism who cannot undertake a journey without it causing them very considerable psychological distress, or who have very considerable difficulty when walking. This is another step forward in ensuring that people with less visible disabilities get the support that they need to live independently. It was widely welcomed, including by the National Autistic Society, which said that it was

“thrilled that the Department had listened to the concerns of autistic people and their families”

and that the announcement would

“make a massive difference to the lives of many of the 600,000 autistic people in England, and their families.”

The fifth and final theme in the strategy is the importance of making sure that our future transport systems work for everyone. Transport is changing, and the technologies and services we are using are also changing rapidly. Many of these changes will offer wonderful opportunities for disabled and older people. Autonomous vehicles, for example, could mean that those who would not otherwise be able to drive, including perhaps those with visual impairment, could do so for the first time.