Paul Howell debates involving the Department for Transport during the 2019 Parliament

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Howell Excerpts
Thursday 21st March 2024

(1 week, 1 day ago)

Commons Chamber
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Guy Opperman Portrait Guy Opperman
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I would be delighted to do so. I welcome the fact that my hon. Friend is standing up for her local community in this way. Clearly, it is a question of integrating the particular services, whether they are local or school provision, but it is definitely something that we can sort.

Paul Howell Portrait Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)
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It was good to meet my hon. Friend the Minister and the residents of Fishburn in the Sedgefield constituency recently; and he then followed up with Arriva. Will he endorse my campaign to reconnect Fishburn, Trimdon and Sedgefield back with Newton Aycliffe and Darlington, which were cut off by the removal of the X21? Does he also agree that rural services to places such as these are the critical platform to enable opportunity to be spread and a key reason for the BSIP funding?

Guy Opperman Portrait Guy Opperman
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It was a pleasure to attend the meeting at Fishburn Community Hall, meet the local residents and councillors, be offered a pancake on Shrove Tuesday and discuss bus services and bus funding. I have to say that there is no doubt whatever that the improvement of the X21, in particular taking residents and workers into Newton Aycliffe and Darlington, seems to be utterly sensible, and I will continue to support my hon. Friend’s campaign and meet again with Arriva to ensure that it happens for the people of Fishburn and Trimdon.

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Guy Opperman Portrait Guy Opperman
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I was delighted to visit my hon. Friend recently, engage with him and deal with the individual points that he raised, but I would be happy to sit down and talk to him again. It seems to me that there is a way forward with buses and other forms of transport to help local residents to travel to the shopping centre that he has mentioned: surely the integrated, multimodal approach is the way ahead.

Paul Howell Portrait Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)
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Following many conversations and much engagement, the Secretary of State and the Ministers are well aware that companies in the railway rolling stock supply chain, such as Hitachi Newton Aycliffe, face significant short-term challenges. Next year we will celebrate the 200th anniversary of the first passenger railway in the world, which runs past a Hitachi factory. Can the Secretary of State update me on what he is doing to ensure that companies such as Hitachi have a long-term future in the UK to build the next generation of north-east trains?

Mark Harper Portrait Mr Harper
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My hon. Friend has been a doughty campaigner for his constituents. He has already raised this issue with me on a number of occasions, and I am glad that he has raised it again.

I have had frequent meetings with Hitachi’s management in both the UK and Japan, and we are working very hard to deal with the situation. Hitachi’s HS2 order was confirmed on the original terms, and I am working with its representatives. The Rail Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman), recently published the details of the future rolling stock that is in the pipeline, and Hitachi is very competitively placed to win orders for much of that. I hope we will be able to reach a successful conclusion in the very near future.

Walking and Cycling: Government Support

Paul Howell Excerpts
Tuesday 20th February 2024

(1 month, 1 week ago)

Commons Chamber
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Trudy Harrison Portrait Trudy Harrison
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Of course that is needed for all ages; I welcome the hon. Member’s intervention. My point is that when resources are stretched and priorities need to be made, we should prioritise those early habits, because those children will grow into adults. It is an absolutely crying shame that in this country an average of about 25 limbs are amputated every day as a result of diabetes. I think it is a national disgrace that we have the third highest population living with obesity in Europe. While we are very good in Cumbria at teaching Bikeability training, we are, sadly, woefully inadequate when it comes to children getting out and riding their bikes, with, unsurprisingly, the health inequalities that follow. Those statistics are national statistics, but they are even worse in Cumbria.

Paul Howell Portrait Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)
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The conversation at the moment is very much about cycling, but I think we need to remember walking as well. In Trimdon, one of my villages, we have a road—we were talking about A roads, but this is a B road—that goes straight through the village at pace. The village is one side and the play area is the other side, and a little stepping stone to get across has been proposed many times. If we could get such things put in place, it would build the habit of walking, which builds the habit of enjoyment in moving around. Is that part of the agenda my hon. Friend is trying to get to?

Trudy Harrison Portrait Trudy Harrison
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Yes, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. I have been focusing on cycling so far, but I will come on to walking. I will entertain the House with my walking adventure, all the way from Saint Bees in my constituency right over to Robin Hood’s Bay, which is some 195 miles. The infrastructure for walking and cycling is vitally important.

We are having a debate about active travel, which is a very important debate to have, but I think an even more pressing issue—and I ask the Minister to have discussions about this with his counterparts in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs—is the growing mountain of ultra-processed foods we now consume in this country. It is perhaps 60% to 80% of our diet, which drives profit away from the local farmer, because this stuff is not really food; it is feedstuff fed into mechanised processes and fiddled with for huge commercial gain, at great cost to our life quality and our life chances. So rather than the local farmer benefiting from food produced sustainably, big pharma profits from the pills and potions prescribed to patch the problem. Thank God for social prescribing, which I think is a fantastic intervention by the Government. I am also delighted to work with people such as Andrew Denton, Jim Burt and William Bird, who are just a few of the geniuses I have had the pleasure of working with recently in trying to create a more naturally healthy Britain.

As part of the Routes 2 Roots campaign, the ask of the Department for Transport includes changing the funding model so that 5% of the road budget is dedicated to supporting active travel; creating safer walking and cycling routes, including better lighting and surfacing, and repairing potholes, which are a menace to all road users; and adopting “20’s Plenty”—not everywhere, but outside schools where it really matters. This would have multiple benefits, such as improving air quality around schools, which are usually in the centre of communities, and making available more of the road space and pavement space that is so important for walking. Importantly, it will develop in young children healthy and active habits that will last them a lifetime.

About a quarter of children in this country are living with obesity when they start school at about four or five. However, the real tragedy is that 35%—over a third—of children are leaving primary school living with obesity. Those figures are alarming, but in Cumbria, again unfortunately, it is even worse. The vast majority of those children will grow into adults who suffer further health issues as a result of their formative years.

I might be asking this Transport Minister to overstep his mark, but it would be helpful if he perhaps wrote to Ofsted, because I think it would be incredibly powerful if, during Ofsted visits, the inspectors asked schools how many of the children are walking or cycling to school. I think that would encourage schools to work with parents to develop safer routes, with things such as side-road zebra crossings and other ways in which we can improve the routes from home to school. That would mean that children get to school and are more able to concentrate, and perhaps that they get in the daily mile in one day from getting to and leaving school. It would also ensure they have formed the early habits of living more healthily that will last them a lifetime.

Rural Transport

Paul Howell Excerpts
Monday 8th January 2024

(2 months, 3 weeks ago)

Commons Chamber
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Bill Wiggin Portrait Sir Bill Wiggin
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I will come to buses in a moment. I am not convinced that the very fat buses that we have nowadays that hardly fit down rural lanes and are usually empty are necessarily the best way to transport people around our rural communities. However, my hon. Friend’s point about mental health is fundamental to the wellbeing of our constituents, so more innovation, better delivery and better transport will be at the heart of that issue.

Paul Howell Portrait Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)
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Just to expand on the importance of the bus solution, I have villagers in Trimdon, Fishburn and Sedgefield who want to get to employment. It is not just about mental health; it is about employment and the whole gamut for people living in those places. The roads need to be flat so that the buses can run on them, and we must find solutions, whether it is little buses, thin buses, big buses or whatever. They need to be in place and use the funding that is available from the Government.

Bill Wiggin Portrait Sir Bill Wiggin
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I will get on to the subject of buses, but my hon. Friend is right and his constituents are truly blessed to have such a diligent Member of Parliament.

Let me come on to the Government’s “Future of Transport: rural strategy”, which I hope will contain some of the answers for my hon. Friends. In this instance, it highlights the opportunity for rural residents to move to electric and self-driving vehicles. The latter might be one of the solutions for people. I am always astonished whenever I see a picture of a self-driving vehicle—why do they have wing mirrors? It is extraordinary. A constituent once asked what happens if a self-driving vehicle is stolen, and I said that it would probably come back by itself.

The transition requires reliable charging point infrastructure. To match demand, 300,000 charging points will be required by 2030. Currently, rural areas have only one sixth of the public charging points for electric vehicles that are available. In Herefordshire, there are only 12 public charging points, despite the fact that rural areas constitute 90% of England. The limited range of electric vehicles is also problematic for rural residents who may need to travel longer distances. That is not to mention the need for four-wheel drive, which is essential when the roads are covered in snow and are not cleared, as they are in London.

The real solution for rural communities for the future is hydrogen. We have plenty of water, and we need and use heavy machinery. There will never be an electric digger that is even half as good as the hydrogen-powered JCB backhoe. Brilliantly, JCB has developed its direct-burn hydrogen fleet, which substitutes hydrogen for diesel and means that already heavy plant does not need giant batteries. With machines such as the JCB Loadall telehandler, we can continue to fight climate change from the farmyard—something we do best.

But help is needed so that farmers can move to hydrogen-powered JCB-manufactured machinery. At the moment, hydrogen is not a recognised road fuel. We need to license it for road use, and that means that regulation 94 of the Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations 1986 needs to be amended so that that barrier to hydrogen is removed. I hope the Minister will tell us that he will make that happen immediately, in conjunction of course with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.

We also need to recognise that farm machinery is getting larger as we have more people to feed. Some common sense is required by the Department for Transport, which should allow the police to fight rural crime rather than escorting combine harvesters over 3.5 metres wide. And that is if the police have been given five days’ notice, which is especially difficult during harvest time when rain is beckoning. We need uniform rules so that combines can cross police force borders without needing to go through these applications again and again. The current system of dispensation orders is a good first step, but we really should catch up with the times and deliver a better way to cut corn.

Meanwhile, heavy goods vehicles pose a challenge for the winding roads in rural regions. Although the use of drones is a possible solution in some cities, that is unlikely to be true in the countryside. Such problems mean that it is important that the Government provide some sort of oversight and policing so that green activists do not try to disrupt or destroy national infrastructure in the way they did in Hereford.

To increase productivity, we should ensure that people get to work around the country more quickly. Increasing speed limits on motorways would help to do that but, as Lord McLoughlin told me many years ago, there is no evidence available about the safety implications. That means that we need to test and trial increased speed limits along with safer cars and better brakes. An excellent place to test these things would be the M50, which is the perfect motorway on which to try to increase the speed limit. It is short and safe, and is a truly excellent motorway, where we could easily monitor the safety of a higher speed limit.

Road maintenance is also vital from a safety perspective, particularly for cyclists and motorcyclists. That is often forgotten by those who advocate cycling, but it is especially important that this safety angle is not forgotten as people consider the potential uptake of electric bikes and micromobility solutions such as e-scooters in rural areas, although I would not recommend that particular form of transport, because a small-wheeled scooter is ill-equipped to cope with the muddy and mucky roads.

Rural roads pose significant dangers for all motorists. There are overhanging trees, and there is green plant growth on the road signs. Worst of all is the gravel that is washed into the road by rainstorms, which is an absolute nightmare for motorcycles, and the hazards can of course be fatal. Rural roads were the site of over half the cyclist deaths that occurred between 2016 and 2021, and between 2018 and 2022 rural roads were the site of an average of 66% of motorcyclist deaths. Cycling is also not a solution for the 25.5% of the rural population who are over 65.

The Government could also look at the advice from IAM RoadSmart, which is campaigning for VAT-free status for air vests. Motorcycling airbag vests and jackets can prevent certain types of injury in the event of a collision. Although there is a stated maximum intervention time of 200 milliseconds to achieve British standard EN 1621-4:2013, there is currently no requirement to comply with that standard. Helite, a manufacturer, confirms that air vests provide injury mitigation, saying that they maintain

“the cervical vertebrae and the head”

and the

“Rigidification of the trunk to stabilise the vital organs: thorax, lungs, pancreas, abdomen, stomach, liver.”

They also offer

“Complete protection of the spinal column”

and

“Kidney and hip protection. The trunk is maintained to…resist hyper-flexing.”

Separate research by IAM RoadSmart discovered that nearly two thirds of motorcyclists believe that the cost of safety wear has prevented them from purchasing items that would enhance their safety while on a motorcycle.

Turning to public transport, rural residents are heavily dependent on their cars because public transport is not widely available to them. Limited travel options may restrict residents’ ability to find a job. Businesses also rely on transport infrastructure for access to rural talent pools and customers. When I spoke to the Minister—then the employment Minister—and branch managers at Leominster Jobcentre Plus last March, the need for improved transport links to the largest employers in Herefordshire was a particularly useful point that was raised.

I must commend the Government for the progress they are making with the pilot schemes for demand-responsive transport, which has seen 17 local authorities being granted £20 million to pilot schemes in rural and suburban regions for on-demand buses. An interim report found that the use of the schemes in the areas analysed was increasing, and that in respect of those that began before October 2022, the average number of monthly passengers had been between 282 and 1,725. It is important for public transport to be affordable as well as convenient, and the Government’s capping of bus fares was generous, but traditional buses are themselves facing decline. Between 2022 and 2023 nearly 20% of bus routes were reduced, and, according to the County Councils Network, bus services are now at a “historic low” in rural regions.

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Bill Wiggin Portrait Sir Bill Wiggin
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The Government are being very generous—the hon. Lady may have forgotten to mention that—but the important point is that buses are not the success story that I wish they were. I am very lucky in that Bromyard has Dave Morris’s fantastic DRM transport business, but I think we need to think carefully about how we can make public transport affordable, reliable and efficient. Simply throwing money at the challenges has failed so far to deliver a sustainable long-term solution, although “buses on demand” is certainly a good idea. I therefore hope that the national bus strategy will help bus companies to compete with trains and continue to deliver better public transport.

And now for trains: oh, dear!

Paul Howell Portrait Paul Howell
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Will my hon. Friend give way?

Bill Wiggin Portrait Sir Bill Wiggin
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I will, before I steam on to trains.

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Paul Howell Portrait Paul Howell
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I just wanted to make a final point about the bus agenda, and the importance of those buses. When people are evaluating a bus service, if the service is poor and becomes worse and worse, they will abandon it. Durham has seen the biggest drop in bus use in the country. We need not only a good road but a good service, whether it is demand-responsive or not. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need to take a long-term view and ensure that there is a service offer that encourages people to use buses until we get the best service out of our bus routes?

Bill Wiggin Portrait Sir Bill Wiggin
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I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend: he is quite right. People do “wise up” to inefficient public services—and there is no better example than the train service.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Howell Excerpts
Thursday 14th December 2023

(3 months, 2 weeks ago)

Commons Chamber
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Huw Merriman Portrait Huw Merriman
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The Prime Minister’s Network North announcement gave that commitment on the Ivanhoe line down to Leicester. We are fully committed to that. I know that I am due to be meeting the hon. Member on another matter, so I will give him more of an update then.

Paul Howell Portrait Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)
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Like many, I welcomed what was going on with Network North, particularly the announcement of Ferryhill Station. When it comes to the final assessment and decisions, we need to ensure that the right question is asked, as the Green Book says. The right question is: what is the socioeconomic benefit to the towns and villages around the station, not to the GDP of the UK? May I ask for that assurance please?

Huw Merriman Portrait Huw Merriman
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That was another commitment that the Prime Minister made in the Network North announcement. My hon. Friend has campaigned for Ferryhill Station for so long, and I thank him for bringing it forward. The business case will look at the socioeconomic conditions that he mentions, and I am confident that we will be able to get spades in the ground for his station very shortly.

Zero-emission Vehicles, Drivers and HS2

Paul Howell Excerpts
Monday 16th October 2023

(5 months, 2 weeks ago)

Commons Chamber
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Mark Harper Portrait Mr Harper
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Just to be clear, of the money that we are saving as a result of cancelling the second phase of HS2, just under £20 billion is being spent in the north and just under £10 billion is being spent in the midlands. The money being spent in the rest of the country is the money saved from the way we are now going to deliver Euston station—with a much more ambitious development, building thousands more houses and having a much more positive impact on the local economy. It is sensible to call it Network North, because that is where two thirds of the money is going, but the £6.5 billion that is being spent in the rest of the country, outside the north and the midlands, will be very welcome. As I have said, every penny is being reinvested in those parts of the country that HS2 was going to benefit. In the north of England, for example, we are looking at investing £12 billion in the line between Liverpool and Manchester, and at having productive talks with the Mayors in that part of the world to deliver transport projects that are their priorities for the people they represent.

Paul Howell Portrait Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)
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The allocation of funding to the north-east has the potential to have a major positive local impact. I particularly welcome the announcement on Ferryhill station and look forward to discussing the timing with the Secretary of State. However, the substantial funding towards investments such as the Leamside line was within 24 hours spun by the local opposition as a reversal of intent. Will he make absolutely clear what is being delivered to the north-east and how it affects the Leamside project?

Mark Harper Portrait Mr Harper
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I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for his question. The reopening of the Leamside line is a Transport North East-led project. It is developing a business case to connect Washington with the Tyne and Wear metro, and we are supporting it as it develops the outline business case. Because we have cancelled the second phase of HS2, £685 million extra is being allocated to the north-east, meaning that the new north-east Mayor will have £1.8 billion to spend on their transport funding over the five years from 2027. One such scheme could be the reopening of the Leamside line. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) says, “Could be”. We believe in devolution. We are giving £1.8 billion to the north-east Mayor and it will be for the Mayor to decide the priorities. I know, having talked to one of the candidates for that mayoral office, that this is a priority for them. My hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Paul Howell) has been championing this project enormously, and we can now fund such projects because of the cancellation of the second phase of HS2. I am grateful to my hon. Friend and will continue to work with him as he champions that case.

High Speed 2

Paul Howell Excerpts
Monday 18th September 2023

(6 months, 1 week ago)

Commons Chamber
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Richard Holden Portrait Mr Holden
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I say to the right hon. Member that a huge amount of investment is already going into HS1, which will deliver transformation, particularly at Old Oak Common, as I have mentioned, where there will be a huge boost to economic growth in quite a deprived area of London as well as that massive investment. I do not know whether he has been down to Curzon Street and seen the transformation happening in central Birmingham. I would have thought that jobs, housing and general prosperity were outcomes that he would welcome.

Paul Howell Portrait Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)
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Let me start by correcting the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh), who said that the Prime Minister only flies over the north. He does not; he is a regular user of the Hitachi Azuma on the east coast main line.

For rail and for HS2, it is all about capacity: we need to get capacity into the rail industry. Certainly, in my Sedgefield constituency there was no investment in rail by my predecessors. Whether it is HS2 or regional rail—as with the Leamside line and Ferryhill station—delivery and certainty are necessary for supply-chain businesses. This constant change is not helpful. Will the Minister go back to his Department and encourage certainty and clarity, whether about HS2 or Northern Powerhouse Rail? We need certainty for everybody.

Richard Holden Portrait Mr Holden
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I thank my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour for his question. He is absolutely right: the Prime Minister uses those trains regularly—in fact, I think they are made in my hon. Friend’s constituency, or very nearby—to travel right across the country. I welcome my hon. Friend’s continued fighting for his constituents on rail and transport projects not just in his area but across the wider north and north-east of England. I shall take his comments back to colleagues.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Howell Excerpts
Thursday 13th July 2023

(8 months, 2 weeks ago)

Commons Chamber
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Mark Harper Portrait Mr Harper
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Either I or the maritime Minister will be pleased to do that. I hope I can reassure the hon. Member’s constituent that, of the 99 cases that have been through the MCA’s medical assessors, no fisherman has been failed, except one who did not provide the evidence required. She will also know that there are grandfather provisions for those fisherman already in the industry if they obtain their medical certificate before 30 November, and I urge them to do so. If she writes to either me or the maritime Minister, I will make sure that one of us meets her and her constituents.

Paul Howell Portrait Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)
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16. What steps he is taking to improve railway infrastructure.

Huw Merriman Portrait The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Huw Merriman)
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We continue to invest in upgrading the railways across England and Wales, with a budget of about £2 billion a year, including opening five new stations and two new lines in the past three years. In the north-east, the Government are investing in Darlington station, the Northumberland line and the east coast main line upgrade.

Paul Howell Portrait Paul Howell
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I thank the Minister for his answer, but the most critical rail infrastructure needed in the north-east by far is the Leamside line project, starting with Ferryhill station. Its importance cannot be overstated; it is about resilience, capacity and levelling up. Can he tell us when we will get spades in the ground to show our commitment to constituents in Ferryhill and let them see the economic benefit that these stations will bring?

Huw Merriman Portrait Huw Merriman
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I pay tribute to my hon. Friend, who is a champion of rail in the north-east. I thank him for his long-standing support for this scheme and for sponsoring the bid for restoring your railway ideas funding to reopen a station at Ferryhill. The updated strategic outline business case for the Ferryhill-Middlesbrough proposal is with the Department and we will be looking at it shortly.

Buses: Funding

Paul Howell Excerpts
Wednesday 17th May 2023

(10 months, 2 weeks ago)

Commons Chamber
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Richard Holden Portrait Mr Holden
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I thank the hon. Gentleman for her interest in my local social media posts. This Government, unlike the previous Labour Government, have already provided £117.8 million in bus service improvement plan allocations. I do not know whether she noticed the response I gave to the hon. Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist), but earlier today I spoke to Councillor Gannon, who runs the North East Combined Authority’s transport scheme, and he welcomed what we are doing. On top of that there is more money to come, and the £2 bus scheme announced today. But it is not all about that; this is about protecting local services. I am sure that when she—[Interruption.] When the hon. Lady looks at the amount of money—[Interruption.] She has called me far worse in the past on the House of Commons terrace, as we all know, and I thank her for her unreserved apology for that at the time. We are putting in investment that the Labour party never did, and when she looks at the moneys going into Go North East and Arriva North East over the next few weeks, she will see how much they are getting and how that should benefit local users across the great county of Durham.

Paul Howell Portrait Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)
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I welcome today’s announcement. As has been said, bus access is fundamental for many of my constituents across a large rural area, and the BSIP that is coming through, and getting around for £1 for the under-21s, is fabulous. As the Minister knows, we have an issue with service levels—he has been working with me to see what we can do. A survey has just gone out in Trimdon that suggests that accessibility is a much bigger issue than cost. Will the Minister continue to work with me to try to find better solutions and different ways of doing this, to get people the access to leisure or work that they deserve?

Richard Holden Portrait Mr Holden
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My hon. Friend is right about accessibility, and I am fully aware of the issues he has raises with Trimdon. On accessibility more broadly, he should be reassured that with audio-visual alerts on buses we really are rolling out those upgrades right across the country to make buses more accessible to as many people as practically possible. He is fully aware of the £163 million pledged to the north-east for the bus service improvement plan, and I am looking forward to working with him, particularly on the cash allocated to County Durham, to see how we can ensure that, in particular, those delisted rural former pit villages really get the services that they need so that opportunity is spread across our beautiful constituencies.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Howell Excerpts
Thursday 2nd March 2023

(1 year ago)

Commons Chamber
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Richard Holden Portrait Mr Holden
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The hon. Lady should reflect on the fact that we have put £5 billion into pothole funding between 2020 and 2025, with millions of potholes being filled every year. The three-year settlement for highways maintenance announced in the spending review is there, and as I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South (Scott Benton), I will be pushing the Treasury for more money to go in this direction.

Paul Howell Portrait Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)
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7. What recent assessment he has made of whether railways require modernisation.

Mark Eastwood Portrait Mark Eastwood (Dewsbury) (Con)
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24. What steps he is taking to help ensure efficient and reliable rail services.

Paul Howell Portrait Paul Howell
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Modernisation takes many forms and, in my constituency of Sedgefield, we eagerly await the modernisation of infrastructure through Ferryhill station’s bid under the Restoring Your Railways scheme, which will be the first stage on the Leamside line. We also have Hitachi Rail, which has played a significant role in levelling up the north-east since the factory was opened by the Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron in 2015. Hitachi has created 800 highly-skilled jobs in the region since that factory opened, and is also driving vital innovation in battery and digital technology to modernise the railways. I ask my right hon. Friend to confirm that his Department will make prompt decisions on the business cases under Restoring Your Railways.

Lindsay Hoyle Portrait Mr Speaker
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Order. [Interruption.] No, I will decide when you sit down. Sit! We are meant to be asking questions, not make a War and Peace statement before we get there. Come on, quickly.

Paul Howell Portrait Paul Howell
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Apologies, Mr Speaker. To conclude, I ask my right hon. Friend to visit my constituency and see these outstanding opportunities.

Mark Harper Portrait Mr Harper
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The Government recognise the contribution of Hitachi to the railway supply chain, particularly its success in winning 89% of long-distance orders since 2010, including the order for High Speed 2 rolling stock. It is important that the Government give full and careful consideration to business cases for new orders, to make sure that they offer best value to the taxpayer, and I recognise my hon. Friend’s continued support for the reopening of Ferryhill station, as well as the work undertaken by Network Rail and Durham County Council. The business case for that scheme has been updated and is being carefully considered by the Department, alongside all bids under the Restoring Your Railways scheme.

Restoring Your Railway Fund

Paul Howell Excerpts
Tuesday 24th January 2023

(1 year, 2 months ago)

Westminster Hall
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Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.

Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.

This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record

Kevin Foster Portrait Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
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I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Restoring Your Railway Fund.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Cummins. First, I thank my colleagues on the Backbench Business Committee for agreeing to schedule this timely debate.

The name Dr Beeching evokes strong passions even 60 years after the publication of his first report, and the very fact that I do not have to mention the subject or the title of the report, simply his name, speaks to the special place our railways hold in the nation’s heart and the impact of the proposals that followed. No other mode of transport can evoke such passion or interest, and while more people use buses than trains, it is rare that anyone becomes as engaged in a discussion about a new No. 3 or No. 12 as they do in talking—at length—about the prospects of restoring a piece of track that last saw a train long before many of us were born.

We refer to the Beeching era, but Britain’s railways were contracting before Beeching arrived. For example, in Devon alone, the line to Princetown closed in 1958 and the line to Yealmpton closed to passengers as far back as 1947, but Beeching’s first report on reshaping Britain’s railways is, for many, the key moment. The report has seared his name into our national memory, and it defined an era for our railways. Of 18,000 miles of railway, Beeching recommended that 6,000 miles be closed and 2,363 station closures, both on lines set to close and on lines he proposed remain open.

There are lots of debates about whether different approaches could have been tried, not least reducing costs on lines rather than closing them, but those debates are for the rail historians. We know that today, across Britain, there are viable schemes ready to reconnect communities to our rail network. When people talk about what had been the signs of decline in a once-prosperous town, many local residents include in the list the words, “Then the station closed.” A rail service is often seen as a sign of literally being on track to better prospects. Hence the excitement when a long-lost service returns.

Paul Howell Portrait Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)
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Ferryhill station in my constituency was removed in 1964 when I lived there, although there is still a freight line. The station is symptomatic of the area’s need to regenerate and redevelop. Does my hon. Friend agree that any consideration of whether a bid should succeed must be cognisant of the impact on the people of the area, not just the mathematics that go with it?

Kevin Foster Portrait Kevin Foster
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I could not agree more with my hon. Friend, who is a strong champion for his constituents on the matter. Where once there was a station and now there is a space or an empty building, or just freight trains trundling past, people sense that they might have been left behind, so reopening stations, particularly in locations such as the one he mentioned, is one of the best signs that levelling up could offer to show that the agenda across Government is about giving communities back what they had in the past. We are not going to reintroduce steam trains, but we do want to give people a modern, functional service that points towards an aspiration for a better future.

With respect to such opportunities, the pledge in our 2019 manifesto, which forms the basis of the Government’s mandate, was explicit:

“To help communities across the country, we will restore many of the Beeching lines, reconnecting smaller towns such as Fleetwood and Willenhall that have suffered permanent disadvantage since they were removed from the rail network in the 1960s.”

In January 2020, colleagues across the House will have welcomed the Government translating that pledge into £500 million for the restoring your railway programme to deliver the manifesto commitment, which I know was firm when my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) was Prime Minister. I know the Minister will be keen to repeat it today.

I want to ensure that the commitment remains firm not because I am sentimental about the days when steam trains raced from London Waterloo to Tavistock, but because of what we see when lines reopen and communities reconnect. For example, the revitalisation of the line to Okehampton has brought full passenger services to the town for the first time in five decades. It was the first former line to reopen under the restoring your railway programme. In the same week that it celebrated its one-year anniversary in November, the Dartmoor line also saw its 250,00th journey—more than double the demand originally forecast.

Then there is the Scottish Borders railway, for which an original target was set of 650,000 passengers in the first year, but demand for the service exceeded expectations with almost 700,000 trips made in just the first six months of the line reopening. In short, new lines bring new trade to the railways and provide an attractive alternative to travel by car or coach. The Minister saw for himself the achievements at Okehampton and the excitement of the local community at having its train service back. We would simply not get that with a new road junction or a bus service.