Oral Answers to Questions

Lord McLoughlin Excerpts

Thursday 24th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I can only imagine that it was a noise of approval. Who knows? It may be a divisible proposition, but there we go.

[Sir Patrick McLoughlin (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)]

One very important aspect of bus services is the role played by community services, particularly in rural areas. There is great concern about the consultation that the Department are currently undertaking. When can we expect some final announcements?

[Ms Ghani]

The Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman), is overseeing the consultation, and he will make an announcement before the summer. The Department understands the importance of community transport services, which not only tackle isolation but enable people who would not otherwise have access to transport to keep appointments. I understand their importance particularly well, because I represent a rural constituency. The Department is very concerned about the issue, and we will do what we can to help.

Community Transport

Lord McLoughlin Excerpts

Thursday 10th May 2018 Westminster Hall

[Sir Patrick McLoughlin (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)]

I will make two distinct points, because of the pressure from the amount of people who want to speak. I understand why the Minister felt he had to do this, but I hope that after listening to the debate—to the words of the Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood), and the leader of the Liberals, the right hon. Member for Twickenham (Sir Vince Cable)—he takes on board the very strong feelings, across parties, on this issue.

I first tabled a private Member’s Bill to get bus-fuel duty rebate for community transport back in 1999, because before then the sector was not getting the same kind of rebate as the commercial sector, and I thought that was unfair. When I introduced that private Member’s Bill, the Government prevented it from going any further, but in due course they did bring in a BSOG—bus service operators grant—arrangement for community transport.

When I was Secretary of State for Transport I was fortunate enough to set up a scheme to help the smaller community transport agencies to get new buses. They fulfil a vital role, particularly in rural areas, but also in wider urban areas. I have three community transport agencies in my constituency. To give some idea of the work that Bakewell and Eyam Community Transport did over the past year, it has told me:

“Over the last 12 months we transported over 86,000 passengers which included 8270 wheelchair users and 3525 health related journeys”.

The agency served more than 397 groups, including Age UK, the scouts, Church groups and Women’s Institutes—the list goes on. Bakewell and Eyam Community Transport fulfils a very important role in rural areas.

I am concerned that the proposals have made a number of charitable organisations unnecessarily concerned that they will not be able to continue that work. I would like to see more flexibility. The Minister needs to reflect on the debate, as I am sure he will, and look at what he can do to assist community transport.

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

As my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) said, this is just a matter of law. The new regulation is either a correct implementation of European Union law, or it is not. Which is it?

[Sir Patrick McLoughlin]

I will leave that to the Minister to answer; I am sure he will want to answer that. I fear that this issue has been around for some time. It is obviously everybody’s view, including that of other speakers, that the Government have gone too far in responding to what was European Union regulation. After all, the Government believe in deregulating, not excessive regulation. Perhaps the Minister would like to tell us about all the regulations he will get rid of, because for every regulation he introduces he is supposed to get rid of two.

As we can see, the proposals would lead to a lot of extra regulations that should not be introduced. I hope that the Minister takes note of the debate, and comes forward with a solution that allows community transport to carry on doing the vital job it has done, and that removes the question mark that many community transport agencies feel hangs over them at the moment.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord McLoughlin Excerpts

Thursday 1st March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jesse Norman]

It is the Rhondda valley by proxy. We continue to press the German Government hard on the issue and regard the behaviour of Volkswagen as unacceptable. We are greatly improving the emissions regime, toughening up the testing regime and taking active steps to penalise the use of defeat devices.

[Sir Patrick McLoughlin (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)]

16. What estimate his Department has made of the amount that will be invested in transport infrastructure in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire between 2010 and 2020.

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

In the east midlands, almost £7 billion has been spent on transport since 2010, improving connectivity, shortening journey times, reducing congestion and transporting people, ideas and goods. In Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, that has included £371 million from Government for extensions to the Nottingham tram system, and £4.5 million for the new station at Ilkeston.

[Sir Patrick McLoughlin]

Indeed, the Government have a proud record on transport infrastructure. More transport infrastructure has been planned in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire over these 10 years than ever before. I welcome the proposals for the A38 and smart motorways, and for the Derby and Nottingham stations. May I suggest to my hon. Friend that we also consider smaller projects, which will make vast improvements, and may I put in a bid for the Ashbourne bypass?

[Ms Ghani]

My hon. Friend has been a great advocate of transport locally and is obviously an expert in the field, as a previous Minister in the Department. He is absolutely right that we are investing in the biggest upgrade of the midland main line since it was completed in 1870. It is, however, for Derbyshire County Council to assess the need for that particular project in Ashbourne, and to decide whether to work on plans to deliver it. If the council applies for appropriate Government funding, we would be pleased to consider its bid.

High Speed Rail (West Midlands - Crewe) Bill

Lord McLoughlin Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Allocation of time motion: House of Commons & Carry-over motion: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & 2nd reading & Allocation of time motion & Carry-over motion & Money resolution
Tuesday 30th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend is right, and I am delighted that Siemens has been shortlisted for that work. I want as much of the work as possible to be done in the United Kingdom, so that we can develop that skills footprint, developing those young apprentices and developing the engineering skills that we need for the future. That must happen throughout the United Kingdom: south-west, north-east, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales, south-east, midlands, the north and East Anglia. I want to see jobs and opportunities for British businesses, and businesses based in Britain.

[Sir Patrick McLoughlin (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that we have Crossrail as a model? It is being finalised this year, and will be operating next year. That project was built on the use of suppliers in the United Kingdom, and the spread of its supply network throughout the UK. Although it was a London project, many parts of the country have benefited from it. What HS2 is doing is the natural follow-through from what Crossrail did.

[Chris Grayling]

Absolutely. Crossrail may be a project for transport in London, but it is also a project for engineering and industry in the United Kingdom as a whole. It brings benefits to all parts of the United Kingdom, and HS2 will bring benefits to all parts of the United Kingdom. Northern Powerhouse Rail, when it is built, will bring benefits in southern as well as northern England, and, indeed, throughout the United Kingdom. The more that we invest in these projects, the more economic benefits we will deliver across the UK.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Patrick McLoughlin (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on bringing forward this Bill. I also congratulate all those people in the Department for Transport and in HS2 who are working to finalise these proposals. It is a pleasure to follow the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald), although I think he slightly spoiled his speech by going off piste and talking about electrification. We will take no lessons from Labour on electrification, given its record between 1997 and 2010, during which time it electrified 10 miles of railway. I would like to say that that was a snail’s pace, but I think that a snail would have travelled further in 13 years than Labour did with its electrification.

[Andy McDonald]

The former Secretary of State seems to have totally forgotten the 67 miles of HS1 that were electrified then. Those 67 plus 10 miles add up to a lot more than this Government have ever electrified.

[Sir Patrick McLoughlin]

I think that HS1 was operating before Labour came into government.

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

rose—

[Sir Patrick McLoughlin]

If the hon. Gentleman will allow me, I will make some progress.

It is right to say that we have seen a renaissance on our railways since privatisation, and that renaissance continued under the last Labour Government. Indeed, in their 13 years in government, they did not seek to change the franchising at all. They felt that that was the best way to operate the railways. We had the private sector and the public sector involved, and we saw our railways improve tremendously. If we get to a situation—I hope we do not—of the railways going back to a fully nationalised body, what happened in the ’60s and ’70s will happen again. Rail was always at the back of the queue for investment. Hospitals and education took priority; the railways were left without any priority whatsoever. There is no doubt in my mind that privatisation has led to the rejuvenation of the rail industry, and so much so that passenger numbers have increased from something like 700 million to some 1.6 billion, which speaks for itself.

I am pleased that the Bill has been introduced. David Higgins recommended that we should try to bring the investment and benefits of HS2 more quickly to the north. Should this Bill get its Second Reading today, it is worth remembering that we will see high-speed services to Crewe by 2027. In infrastructure terms, and given the necessary planning, that is not that far away, so I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on bringing the Bill forward.

I know that the Government are well aware of this, but I want to talk about the importance of continuing to develop skills in engineering. The National College for High Speed Rail, which is based in Doncaster and Birmingham, will enable people to get the engineering skills that are so important. All that follows on from the remarkable Crossrail project, which will start to open to the public later this year. We saw such skills in the television programmes covering its development across London.

This important Bill is about capacity. There are those who say that the Department for Transport and its Secretaries of State have changed their mind and that they talk about capacity more than speed, but the very first HS2 document that was published referred to capacity, too. The west coast main line is one of the busiest lines in Europe, if not the busiest. We need a massive injection of infrastructure, and this Bill is the answer

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

The right hon. Gentleman is quite right that we want to speed things up and that the west coast main line is very busy, but to go back to the point that I made to my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald), what are we going to do about the bottlenecks? There were cancellations yesterday, and there only has to be one incident for everything to stop. That affects freight as much as anything else.

[Sir Patrick McLoughlin]

I completely accept that, but the simple fact is that that is one of the reasons for the new line. We want resilience, alternatives and something that is much more modern. We have spent a fortune on upgrading the west coast main line from Birmingham up to Manchester, although I understand that we did not carry out any upgrade south of Rugby. The upgrade was essential, and if the then Government had been a bit more forward thinking, they could have built a new high-speed line then rather than doing an upgrade.

An upgrade has been undertaken, however, and it is very visible near Lichfield, for example, where the bridge has been changed as the line goes through Armitage to accommodate four tracks instead of two. There has been a huge amount of investment in the west coast main line, and that answers the question asked by the hon. Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) with regard to the need for greater capacity, more alternatives, and the modern engineering that we will get from HS2. I cannot remember the exact year, but there was a time a few years ago when every single railway line in the country had problems because of weather disruption apart from HS1, which was built to a high specification with modern engineering.

[Anna Soubry]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way and for his excellent speech. Does he agree that capacity and speed are not mutually exclusive? Not only will we get a world-class new line to deliver new capacity, but we are improving our existing lines. With that in mind, will he confirm how much is about to be invested in the new signalling programme in Derby, a place he knows very well?

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Patrick McLoughlin]

More than £200 million is being spent in Derby on re-signalling and a new platform to ensure that London trains no longer have to cross the lines going to other parts of the country, thereby enabling those trains to go straight through on the main line. That is the kind of investment that is already happening in our railways up and down the country. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has been successful in securing extra investment not just for HS2, but for all the other railway lines that so badly need the kind of upgrades that we will see in Derby. We will no doubt complain when the station has to be closed for a period over the summer, but such a thing is inevitable if we are to achieve such overall benefit. We saw something similar just a few years ago at Nottingham station.

[Mr Seely]

My right hon. Friend speaks eloquently about busyness, capacity and bottlenecks on the west coast main line. Does he have anything to say about the south and south-west rail routes into London? Those routes are busier and have more capacity problems than many northern routes, but they will be unaffected by HS2 and might have their funding skewed because of it.

[Sir Patrick McLoughlin]

I do not think that that is the case, but there is nobody better than the Secretary of State to answer those points. The tremendous investment at Reading station has improved the whole network to the south-west. The investment at that station alone was in the region of £800 million or £900 million. Extra flyovers were put in to improve capacity down to the south-west.

[Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)]

The improvement in overall capacity is brilliant for the people we represent in towns such as Redditch that are outside the major conurbations. The improved capacity will create an opportunity for more services from Redditch to Birmingham for commuting and jobs.

[Sir Patrick McLoughlin]

My hon. Friend is right that HS2 will free up a lot of capacity that is currently used not for local services, but for services from London to Birmingham and on to Manchester. That is one of the answers provided by HS2.

[Gareth Snell]

rose—

[Sir Patrick McLoughlin]

I give way for the last time.

[Gareth Snell]

I thank the former Secretary of State for giving way. What does he think will be the extra capacity for commuter services around Staffordshire? There are no additional plans for commuter services under the proposals. There is no additional infrastructure, other than the HS2 route itself, so there is no immediate benefit.

[Sir Patrick McLoughlin]

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman wants us to have a detailed timetable for 10 years’ time, but extra capacity will become available for new services. I believe that Stoke-on-Trent will benefit greatly from HS2 because of its link, its service and its closeness to Crewe. We then have to improve some of the road structures in and around Stoke-on-Trent so that people can receive the benefit. That will represent far more investment than Stoke-on-Trent saw in any year under a Labour Government, so we can be rightly proud of what we are doing.

I fully accept—my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State addressed this—that any big infrastructure project will always lead to certain people being inconvenienced. If there were a way of ensuring that people would not be inconvenienced, we would all move for it. I am afraid that inconvenience is inevitable. It is worth remembering that the first time a railway was proposed between Birmingham and London, the idea was defeated in the House of Commons because everybody said that the canals were perfectly adequate. That was part of the problem with the west coast main line, and it is why certain diversions were built into it.

The line from the west midlands to Crewe will be of significant benefit to transport infrastructure in this country, the United Kingdom as a whole and our cities outside London by creating connectivity not just between London and our cities, but between those cities. The line is important, and it is moving in the right direction. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on this proposal.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Jones]

Well, the hon. Gentleman suggests that even more public money should go in, so I am not sure where his argument takes him, apart from round in a circle. We are seeing long-overdue public investment in the rail industry.

[Sir Patrick McLoughlin]

We do not want to spend too much time on this issue, but the simple fact is that in the past, when the nationalised railway had to rely solely on the Government, the Government cut off its funding. With privatisation, it has attracted funding. The truth of the matter is that that has seen growth in the rail industry that has made something like HS2 absolutely necessary.

[Andrew Jones]

My right hon. Friend is as wise as ever. Not only do we have public money going into our railways, but we are seeing private investment attracted into our railways and therefore more investment in aggregate. We have this urgent need for capacity within our network to cater for the growth both in passengers and in freight.

After years of decline, this decision has been taken to go for growth. The next question that successive Governments have faced is what form that should take. Should it be investment in the classic rail network, or should we be embracing new technology? Well, we should of course be embracing new technology. Perhaps it is again worth remembering that that has not always been the case under nationalised industries. The UK built its last steam engine in 1960, and it was only in 1964 that the Japanese introduced the bullet train. The Government are buying investment not in phone boxes, but in fibre broadband. Technology should of course be at the heart of our investment decisions.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord McLoughlin Excerpts

Thursday 18th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I have just received the proposals from Network Rail, and we are now reviewing them. My aim is to start this £3 billion upgrade within a matter of months. The project is due to really get under way next year. We are looking at all the different options but, as I have said, electrification will be part of the programme.

[Sir Patrick McLoughlin (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)]

Up until 1992, when the only investment in the railways came from the public sector, rail usage was declining. Since privatisation, we have seen a massive increase in the amount of people using the railways. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that is because of the changes that the private sector brought in?

[Chris Grayling]

I absolutely agree with my right hon. Friend. I do not understand the policy adopted by the Labour party. We are now seeing the construction of thousands of new carriages funded by the private sector, and we are getting rid of some of the legacy trains from the days of British Rail that were not up to scratch in those days and are certainly not up to scratch now. That is because private money is coming in alongside our investment programme.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jesse Norman]

As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, the Bus Services Act 2017 has created those powers. We are in conversations—my officials are in conversations —with Mayors in Manchester and elsewhere in the country, and we remain very interested in having further conversations with other Mayors who wish to avail themselves of these powers.

[Sir Patrick McLoughlin (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)]

When can we expect a decision on the Transport and Works Act order application for the improvement of the Hope Valley line? The public inquiry was in May 2016 and it reported in November 2016, but so far the Department has been unable to say when we will get a decision.

[Chris Grayling]

I will seek to gee things along. The Hope Valley line, as my right hon. Friend will know, is one part of the package of proposals—some new lines, some upgraded lines—that Transport for the North has brought forward for the northern powerhouse rail. I will seek to make sure that that process is concluded as quickly as possible.

Rail Franchising

Lord McLoughlin Excerpts

Wednesday 10th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andy McDonald]

The whole issue of overbidding and making promises that cannot be kept is a consistent characteristic of the modern rail environment.

If the Government’s rail franchising system cannot deliver competition and payments to the Treasury, what is the point of it? The Secretary of State will no doubt be able to give a clear and straightforward answer to that.

[Sir Patrick McLoughlin (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)]

rose—

[Andy McDonald]

As I allow an intervention for the last time, perhaps the former Secretary of State can give us some indication of the point of a franchising system that does not deliver the promised premiums.

[Sir Patrick McLoughlin]

Will the hon. Gentleman tell us, during the course of his speech, how franchising changed between 1997 and 2010, when it was defended continually by the previous Labour Government as the best way to see extra investment in the railways? While he is telling us that, will he also confirm that there are actually more people employed on the east coast main line than there were under the previous people operating that line? Will he welcome the fact that the Pacer trains, which were referred to earlier, will actually go as a result of the new Northern franchise, that the Secretary of State has brought in?

[Andy McDonald]

Let me take the last point first. The European Union dictates that persons with restricted mobility are not served by the Pacers. The time of the Pacers has been up for a long time, and I am glad to see the back of them. I am glad that plenty of people work on the railways, and delighted that the previous Labour Government went about making the railways safe, given the disaster that was Railtrack, which delivered us Potters Bar, Hatfield and Paddington. That was the legacy that the previous Labour Government inherited, and we turned our railways into the safest in Europe, so I am very proud of what we did.

Direct awards and franchise extensions in the rail industry have been overlooked in many of the rail debates. These are contracts that the Government cannot or will not refranchise, and which they are ideologically opposed to running in the public sector. The train companies name their price to the Government for running these hand-to-mouth contracts, which simply keep the trains running in the short term and provide no long-term benefits or investment.

The west coast route has operated on a series of direct awards since 2012, with reports of another extension beyond 2019. Another key inter-city franchise, Great Western, has been operating under a direct award since 2013, when the Government cancelled the franchise competition. Scandalously, Great Western may run as a direct award for 10 years until 2023. The Government cannot refranchise the rail operation because their management of Network Rail has been so poor and the Great Western electrification programme has been such a shambles.

I predict that there will be more direct awards and contract extensions to rail franchises announced by the Government. The east midlands franchise is already on an extension to 2019 and will probably get another one. I also predict that the Secretary of State will need to give Virgin and Stagecoach a direct award on the east coast because he will not be able to deliver on his east coast partnership by 2020. It is simply inconceivable that he will be able to establish a framework, gain regulatory support, put the idea out to tender, receive and evaluate bids, and award the contract within the timeframe he has set out. A direct award to VirginStagecoach on the east coast will allow the companies to continue to profit from the line while they invest even less.

Once again, the Secretary of State needs to be entirely candid with this House: does he, or does he not, anticipate giving Virgin-Stagecoach a direct award to run rail operations on the east coast while he sets out his east coast partnership? Can he confirm whether that will take place? If he does, can he tell the House how much less the value of premium payments to the Treasury would be under this arrangement than under the original franchise?

What is the Secretary of State’s solution to his failing franchising model, as competition dwindles and premiums to the Exchequer reduce? It is quite simple: more taxpayer and fare-payer support for train operating companies. The next franchises to come up are Southeastern and west coast. Under his new revenue support arrangements, taxpayers will top up revenues if growth targets are not met. What is the point of franchising if the operators do not take any risk? In return, the Government will want close financial monitoring of the operators. Do we really want civil servants in Marsham Street poring over train company balance sheets? Is there not enough DFT interference in the railway already?

Rail privatisation’s vested interests have spent more than 20 years trying to get franchising to work. Despite the Government changing and tweaking the system for them time after time, all they have done in return is to reveal ever more and new sorts of failure, while the public continue to suffer substandard services and ever-higher fares. Enough is enough. We need to change the system entirely.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Grayling]

I will take two more interventions, and then I will make some progress.

[Sir Patrick McLoughlin]

The Secretary of State may not actually be able to answer my question at the moment, but the Minister may be able to later. Could he give us an indication as to how much investment there will be in new infrastructure and new railway carriages between 2010 and 2020? How does it compare with the kind of investment that took place between 1997 and 2010?

[Chris Grayling]

I cannot give the exact numbers, but we are investing tens of billions of pounds in the railways over the period that my right hon. Friend mentioned. Crucially, the private sector that the Labour party seems to dislike so much is investing billions of pounds in those new trains. The new trains that are arriving in all parts of the network right now are being funded not by the Government, but by the private sector.

This is the key flaw in Labour’s arguments. Actually, if we get rid of the private sector in the rail network, there will not be any new trains, because this is about billions of pounds that is coming from elsewhere. That money comes otherwise from the Treasury—it has to compete with money for schools and hospitals. Through the public-private organisations that work side by side in our railways, we are delivering a huge infrastructure investment programme and, at the same time, a transformation of our rolling stock. That is what is necessary.