Richard Holden MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Transport, CPC 2025 Speech

Richard Holden MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Transport, CPC 2025 Speech

“Well Conference before I start actually I was seeing Craig backstage.

When I was Chairman, I went to see Craig in hospital and we didn't know if he was going to pull through.

So he is back with us full-throated.

Today I have just been helping him tuck his shirt into his trousers and is a tenacity to the human spirit and the tenacity of our party as we take the fight back to Labour to win the next general election as well.

Conference it's great to be back with you in Manchester

The big city for me growing up down the road

But as some of you know I've travelled around

A Lancashire lad, Uni in London, won northwest Durham, unexpectedly.

Great to see some of you guys here.

Basildon and Billericay just, by twenty votes,

and it's great to be back in transport too.

Coming back to Manchester, I'm reminded of visiting as roads and buses minister

where I came up to sign off a billion-pound, five-year plan,

to create the bee network in this great city,

although it was surprise, surprise, Andy Burnham who grabbed the headlines that day.

But I'm not the only politician who has found themselves fighting Andy Burnham for column inches,

as Labour's current leader knows all too well.

Now, looking at Labour in government,

it is easy to attack their  competence, or lack thereof.

Massive pay rises for their union paymasters yet strikes across the board.

From rail, to tube, strikes here in greater Manchester and on the buses,

in towns and cities across the Midlands and the North.

And we've seen Labour's abandonment of our popular #GetAroundForTwoPound bus fare.

Major road schemes like the A303

With hundreds of millions of pounds wasted in the process

We have seen the side line new laws too that Labour said they'd back

to reduce the misery of roadworks, those schemes delayed by this government

and then delayed again.

All because Labour can't be bothered.

It's not just that Labour don't care about our road networks,

or the drivers who use them,

it's that Labour are actively punishing motorists at every turn in our country.

And most damningly, the Transport Secretary

In her speech at Labour Conference

didn't even mention Britain's freight sector

Didn't mention them.

Not ONE mention of the lorries, shipping, rail freight,

commercial vehicles, vans, or road haulage that are the backbone of Britain.

Not once despite giving her speech almost two hundred years to the day

that the world's first public freight railway opened,

the Stockton to Darlington railway.

How typically Labour

Ignoring British business,

Ignorant of Britain's history.

But it's not just about competence

It's about values too

for us it's about freedom and it's about our belief in our country.

We are unashamedly on the side of the passenger, the driver, the taxpayer and the British worker.

You cannot say the same about Labour.

Look at Ed Miliband.

Driving up bills,

pushing policies that hammer our ability to travel,

killing our North Sea industry while Norway grants new licenses,

in hoc to an extremist activist agenda

We used to call him Red Ed,

He may have tried to re-fashion himself as green Ed,

But the truth is like all the Green comrades, Ed is a watermelon.

Green on the outside but red his core.

And no-one in Labour is standing up for Transport.

Ministers have come and gone.

Most recently we've had one sacked then re-appointed 9 days later.

Before that we had a Transport Secretary sacked for being a convicted fraudster.

Her replacement caused a by-election so she could, I kid you not, jump ship to work for Sadiq Khan.

But despite the chaos in personnel.

Labour have wasted no time maximising Union power.

Hiking taxes on flying, and pursuing state control of rail.

Make no mistake,

Labour is waging an ideological war on motorists, motorcyclists, our freight, and haulage sector

and anyone who does not address you as comrade or bankroll Labour campaigns.

Our Conservative approach, rooted in our most cherished of values

Freedom

is fundamentally different.

And transport, getting around is all about freedom.

I wonder if you, like me

you remember walking to a friend's house as a child,

cycling round your local town or village

that bus journey to your first job

or a first date that you, hoped, would lead to a second date.

Days and nights out in the big city

for me, it was here in Manchester, by train, with my mates,

then passing my driving test,

and then passing my first time my driving test ladies and gentlemen.

And memories of my first car, my umpteenth hand Citroen X,

It was so unreliable

it could have been a Labour Party election pledge.

She was followed rapidly by a Fiesta,

Then by a Clio,

And then followed by Margaret, named not just because she was a Jag in ‘Westminster Blue',

but because she also had turning circle of a cross channel ferry

So, u-turns simply were not possible.

I don't know who writes these jokes.

When it comes to transport, Conservatives are on the side of Freedom

Freedom to go about your business in a pleasant and safe environment

and travel how you want.

That has to be what we're aiming for as Conservatives every single step of the way.

Pragmatic, practical solutions to make everyday life easier,

Everyday.

Not more red tape, more taxes, more rules and regulations.

Our approach is centred around motorists, passengers, and taxpayers

and against those more interested in restricting freedom

and stopping new infrastructure.

We Conservatives must champion freedom at every turn,

by keeping taxes down

and removing the blocks to new infrastructure

and our battle has two fronts.

Firstly, we are staring down the barrel of a stealth tax bonanza on freedom at the budget.

Rachel Reeves has her sights on

your family holiday, with Air Passenger Duty,

on your family car, with Fuel Duty and Insurance Premium Tax,

VAT on taxis and private hire,

inflation busting train fare rises.

Conference, we will fight back against Labour's tax grab at every, single opportunity.

And alongside fighting Labour's transport tax grabs,

we are also putting in the long-term policy work with our team.

We have got some fantastic people down here at the front

My Lords and also Greg and Jerome.

Thank you very much for all the work you do.

We are no longer going to pursue self-flagellating, self-destructive, industry destroying net-zero by 2050, as a policy objective

And we are dead set against Labour's 2030 ban on selling new petrol and diesel cars.

In their wisdom, Labour have reintroduced subsidies for electric cars.

Let's be clear about what a subsidy is,

It is taxpayers' money,

It's your money.

And the worst thing about it,

they told us it would drive job creation in Britian.

But the truth is aside from a couple of small-run, van-based models that qualify for the lowest level of support

every car, every single car, the Government is giving a grant to buy is produced abroad.

in Romania, in France, in Italy, in Japan.

We are sending taxpayers' money,

your money,

to other countries so that their workers can produce cars

that are then sold in our country.

Conference, Conservatives in Parliament voted against it

and when we get back into government, for the sake of the country,

we must stop it.

Now Claire and Kemi has already outlined how Conservatives will reverse the decline in Britain's Oil and Gas production

by allowing new licenses in the North Sea.

Over the next few days, weeks and months, you will hear more from us about motor manufacturing and other industrial sectors too.

But let me leave you with this today.

Our values, when it comes to our vision for transport, are very, very clear.

Freedom.

Freedom to travel in a safe and pleasant way of your choosing.

And as Conservatives will lead the fight against Labour's big tax,

that is killing jobs and opportunity in our country.

Thank you, Conference.”