The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Guy
Opperman) I beg to move, That this House approves the National
Policy Statement for National Networks, which was laid before this
House on 6 March. It is me again—it is déjà vu all over again. I
will be brief in my opening speech. I stand here today as the
Minister in the Department for Transport who is responsible for
infrastructure planning and delivery, although some of my
colleagues handle some...Request free
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport ()
I beg to move,
That this House approves the National Policy Statement for
National Networks, which was laid before this House on 6
March.
It is me again—it is déjà vu all over again. I will be brief in
my opening speech. I stand here today as the Minister in the
Department for Transport who is responsible for infrastructure
planning and delivery, although some of my colleagues handle some
of the other key development consent orders in that respect.
The national networks national policy statement, or NNNPS,
provides the planning framework for determining applications for
nationally significant road, rail and strategic freight
interchange projects. These are schemes determined under the
process set out in the Planning Act 2008. The NNNPS sets out why
we need to develop these networks, and how applications for
projects will be assessed. It does not set out locations where
national network development will take place, neither is it a
transport strategy governing wider transport policies, such as
active travel. The existing NNNPS was designated in 2015, and
approximately 30 road, rail and SRFI schemes have gained consent
since then.
The draft NNNPS was subject to public consultation. Alongside
that, the Transport Committee, led by my hon. Friend the Member
for Milton Keynes South (), undertook an inquiry into
the draft. We have made a number of changes in response to the
Committee’s work, and I want to put on the record that I am
grateful to the Committee for its careful consideration of all
the issues raised through both written and oral evidence. I would
like to apologise on the record to the Committee, because our
initial response to its report did not include a response to one
of its recommendations. Today, I have laid in the House an
amended version of the response, which responds to all the
recommendations, including the recommendation concerning the
application of the NNNPS to other consenting regimes, such as
under the Transport and Works Act 1992. The NNNPS already
provides guidance to applicants on that point, and we believe
that this strikes the right balance.
You will be aware, Mr Deputy Speaker, that we have invested £24
billion in the country’s most important roads through the second
road investment strategy, and are committed to the next five-year
plan for maintaining and enhancing the network. In Network North,
we have recognised the importance of local road infrastructure by
providing major increases in funding for the major network
programme, with some £900 million extra in the midlands and £1.4
billion extra in the north to support regional connectivity and
growth.
Our railways are a vital part of the country’s transport
infrastructure, and well-targeted rail investments play a crucial
role in growing the economy and meeting the connectivity needs of
customers and businesses. We also want to ensure that we support
freight in all its forms. Freight trains carry goods worth over
£30 billion per year across a range of different
commodities—specifically, supporting construction and intermodal
flows, which can include customers’ goods.
It is right that we provide a planning policy framework that
enables us to deliver projects and investment as quickly as
possible. The revised NNNPS does that, and I commend this
statement to the House.
4.22pm
(Sefton Central) (Lab)
I had anticipated a slightly longer opening speech from the
Minister. Nevertheless, here we are today to debate a new
national networks national policy statement, a decade after the
previous statement was published in 2014. The right hon. Member
for Welwyn Hatfield () originally promised that the
Government would review the NNNPS in July 2021, but here we are,
nearly three years on from that promise and a decade on from the
last published statement. Perhaps the Minister could explain why
it took so long to get to this point.
The UK committed to reach net zero by 2050 when we signed the
Paris agreement in 2015. It is not good enough that it took nine
years for net zero to finally be integrated into the NNNPS. Since
2015, we have moved backwards on net zero. Just look at the Prime
Minister’s delaying of the end of the sale of new petrol and
diesel cars and vans. This rowing back on net zero is not just a
disaster for the planet; it will worsen the cost of living crisis
for drivers, with an estimated cost to consumers of an
eye-watering £13 billion in higher fuel costs as a direct result
of the Prime Minister’s decision.
Then there is the mess he made of HS2. The irony and symbolism of
where he made the announcement is lost on no one: a disused
railway station at the end of the proposed line. Everyone
recognises the impact of the decision on net zero. Even the
writers of “The Thick of It” would have dismissed such a plotline
as far too implausible.
Freight trains have 76% fewer emissions than the equivalent road
transport capacity, but because of the Prime Minister’s chaotic
decision making, half a million more lorry journeys will add to
the clogging up of our roads every year by carrying freight that
could have been delivered by rail. I wonder whether the Minister
will respond to that point about rail freight.
The hon. Gentleman has raised a legitimate point about HS2.
Clearly the Prime Minister’s decision on 6 October was to
redistribute that funding to a variety of projects, particularly
in the north, but what is the Labour party policy? Is its
manifesto proposal to continue with HS2 and the second leg or
not?
It is a shame that the Minister did not stand up to announce that
the Government had found some miraculous way of returning to the
consensus. We know that the Conservatives have taken a wrecking
ball to the HS2 project, and that they blew the budget, which is
why they cancelled it, so we are not going to be able to revive
it. After the rushing through of the fire sale of the land, the
downgrading of ambition on major stations such as Euston and the
reallocation of funding originally meant for HS2, which I think
he referred to in his speech, there is no way we would be able to
revive it.
Is it any wonder that the Transport Committee has warned us that
there is still a lot of catching up to do when it comes to our
climate change commitments and to ensuring that we deliver major
infrastructure projects on time and to budget? The Transport
Committee’s members made their concerns crystal clear when they
said that
“the Government should have been proactive and reviewed the NPS
upon the introduction of Net Zero targets, and should do when any
changes are made to net zero target policies”.
Yet the latest national networks national policy statement still
leaves gaps, notably in its admission that
“residual carbon emissions as an impact of NSIP”—
nationally significant infrastructure project—
“schemes are acceptable”.
There is a further lack of clarity over what “residual carbon
emissions” means in practice, and the policy statement does not
offer a process to distinguish between acceptable residual
emissions and emissions that would mean carbon targets would not
be met. The Transport Planning Society has even warned that the
contradiction between the NNNPS and the transport decarbonisation
plans is “potentially incredibly dangerous”.
We all know that our planning system is broken, with too many
projects bogged down in development limbo for years on end as
they wait for a decision, but the Transport Committee has warned
that the gaps in this policy statement that I have just
identified could lead to even more costly and time-consuming
legal challenges to major projects on climate grounds. This would
slow down our snail’s-pace planning system even further, and it
is the taxpayer that would pay the price for the delays.
The flaws in the statement do not stop there. The Government have
failed to take into account local authority-level targets and
carbon budgets, to ensure that the local level impact of major
development projects is taken into account. Meanwhile, Midlands
Connect warns that sub-national transport bodies have also been
snubbed. Many of these bodies have already developed strategic
transport plans at regional level to support economic growth and
reduce carbon emissions. They should not be ignored.
The National Infrastructure Planning Association has highlighted
a lack of clarity in a number of areas, such as the frequency
with which policy is reviewed, and the need for further detail to
be published. The organisation warned that “weak links”
ultimately result in
“delays to decisions on DCO applications”.
It warns that those delays to development consent orders
could
“slow down the delivery of Nationally Significant Infrastructure
Projects”.
So will the Minister tell us whether the Government are going to
take the action that is needed so that Britain does not fall even
further behind in the development of vital national
infrastructure?
On the subject of existing delays to planning, the planning
process has already become cumbersome and slow under this
Government, with the time taken to grant development consent
orders increasing by 65% since 2012, to more than four years. In
response to the Transport Committee’s report, which flagged the
planning system as a key source of delay in delivering
infrastructure projects, the Government themselves even admitted
that they recognised
“the need for modernisation and reform to the planning
system”.
I have covered the shambolic approach to HS2, but a whole range
of other major infrastructure projects that the Minister’s
Department is supposedly committed to delivering have seen
soaring costs and repeated delays. Years of failure to deliver
rail infrastructure upgrades such as the midland main line have
robbed communities of the benefits of better transport
services.
The Minister mentioned his so-called Network North proposal, but
I remind him that 85% of its projects are reannouncements. Much
of the investment is not even in the north. In fact, some of it
includes filling potholes in London—I do not think it is just
north London, either.
Although the headline figure masks the fact that the money is
spread over 11 years, as we established at Transport questions on
Thursday, the average annual funding is equivalent to only a
third of last year’s increase in the backlog of local road
repairs. The consequences of these failures are not theoretical
but all too real. Communities are being denied the huge economic
opportunities that transport infrastructure projects can deliver,
and they are currently stuck relying on creaking Victorian
infrastructure.
The reality is that this Government’s track record on delivering
nationally significant infrastructure projects is woeful. Today’s
debate should be an opportunity to review and to learn from what
has gone wrong after 14 years of delays, failures to deliver,
constant policy changes and contradictions. Unlike this
Government, Labour is committed to meeting our climate
obligations and to getting Britain building again.
We recognise the need to address the bottlenecks on our rail
network to cut congestion and emissions, which is why we have
committed to a credible and transformative programme of transport
infrastructure investment to link our towns and cities,
particularly across the north and midlands. We also recognise the
need to deliver for drivers by cutting congestion, improving the
state of public transport and removing the barriers that are
blocking the electric vehicle charging infrastructure
roll-out.
Labour will do what this Government have failed to do by
reforming the broken planning system to ensure that upgrades and
progress on our transport infrastructure are actually delivered.
Labour’s plan for government will accelerate infrastructure
delivery, extend the reforms in the Levelling-up and Regeneration
Act 2023 and ensure that the action plan for the nationally
significant infrastructure projects regime covers the Transport
and Works Act 1992, the Highways Act 1980 and the hybrid Bill
process. We will encourage active travel, support public
transport and give local authorities the power to better
integrate their local transport networks.
We have launched an independent review of transport
infrastructure. Driven by industry experts, the review will
explore how transport infrastructure can be delivered on time and
on budget, learning lessons from the mess that this Government
have made of major projects such as HS2. We will update all
national policy statements within six months of taking office to
ensure they help, not hinder, the construction of important
transport infrastructure projects.
Labour is serious about learning the lessons from the staggering
failure of the last 14 years. We accept that this national policy
statement improves on what came before in some areas, which is
why we will not oppose it today, but the Minister really should
set out why he believes that the policy statement’s lack of
clarity on crucial points, particularly on climate change
commitments, will not worsen the delays that are already slowing
our planning system to a crawl.
If the Minister cannot or will not provide those answers today,
Labour will look again at the provisions when we embark on our
own review of the national policy statements. As we seek to
ensure that we both respect our climate change commitments and
deliver on our mission to get Britain building again, Labour does
not accept the managed decline of our vital infrastructure. We
will not accept barriers and blockages to the upgrades we need
for smoother, greener transport and to enable everyone to benefit
from the enhanced economic opportunities that will follow from
better transport connections.
Britain is the country that gave the world the railways. We can
and should be leading the world on delivering better, greener
transport infrastructure. In government, Labour will make that a
reality.
Mr Deputy Speaker ( )
I call the Chair of the Transport Committee.
4.34pm
(Milton Keynes South)
(Con)
It is a pleasure to make a short contribution to this debate. As
the Minister alluded to, the Transport Committee conducted the
scrutiny of the draft national networks NPS. We concluded it in
October last year and published our recommendations. Before I get
into the substance of my remarks, let me take this opportunity to
place on record my grateful thanks to the Clerk of the Committee,
Judith Boyce, her team, all the advisers we had and the witnesses
who gave us evidence. Particularly on topics that can be very
technical, their support and guidance was invaluable, and I thank
them all for helping me in this work.
The review of the NNNPS was overdue and I am glad that the
Government appreciated that there was a need for an update. I am
also grateful that they accepted one of our central
recommendations: that the NNNPS should be placed on a five-yearly
review, with a shorter review term if that is justified by policy
changes. That does not mean we should look forward to a complete
handbrake turn revision of the NNNPS, but it is important that
there is the opportunity to consider the wider policy environment
and Government priorities.
I also very much welcome the Government’s acceptance of some of
our other recommendations, with the first being that the NNNPS
should, for clarity, explicitly state the Government’s
understanding of the legal precedent for permitting major
infrastructure schemes that increase emissions where that
increase is judged as not likely to harm the achievement of a
national target. Secondly, the Government accepted that they
should publish their own estimated congestion forecasts for the
strategic road network. Thirdly, they accepted a reinstatement of
wording on sites of special scientific interest. The draft did
not contain that and without it developers may have been able to
argue that the impacts of a project on biodiversity would not
need to be mitigated. I am particularly grateful that that
wording has been reinstated.
Alongside the Government’s response to our recommendations, we
heard two welcome announcements. The first was of a review of the
transport infrastructure legislation to seek more effective
delivery of future nationally significant infrastructure
projects. Perhaps most significant was the announcement by the
Minister for Housing, Planning and Building Safety, my hon.
Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (), who is in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing
and Communities, that a wider independent review would be set up,
headed by , on speeding up the delivery
of major infrastructure projects. Over many Governments, there
has been a frustration that significant projects required for the
country take too long, so looking at ways to speed this up is
very much to be welcomed.
I just want to caveat that welcome with a suggestion that we also
need to look more widely at the strategic decision-making process
for transport and related infrastructure. The NNNPS and the two
reviews I mentioned look at the “how” of transport infrastructure
project delivery but less at the “why” and the “should”. One
recommendation we made, which the Government rejected, was that
they should be more transparent in the decision-making process on
potential alternatives to nationally significant infrastructure
project choices. The rejection of that recommendation raises a
concern with me, as transport projects are not just put in place
for the sake of it; we do not build a new railway, road, port
extension and so on just because it is good in itself. These
projects are there for a purpose; they are there to support wider
policy objectives. Be it in supporting trade, housing and
economic regeneration, decarbonisation or many other things,
transport does not sit in glorious isolation from other policy
objectives.
I question whether we, as a country, have had the right
decision-making process in place, over many decades, to appraise
and evaluate different projects, in order to ensure joined-up
thinking on policy across Government. To help explore that, one
of the Committee’s current inquiries is on strategic transport
objectives. I do not yet have any recommendations to make, as we
are still part way through that inquiry. It looks at a number of
issues in the round, including policy development, what decisions
should be made centrally or at a devolved level, and how to
inject longer-term certainty into the system to help lever in
additional private investment.
Transport will always fall below more immediate and electorally
saleable spending. Whether that spending is on the health
service, the police, defence or a range of other areas, transport
will always be lower down the priority queue under any
Government. By their very nature, projects last well beyond the
course of a single parliamentary or governmental term, so having
that longer-term perspective is important. In addition to our
inquiry, the Liaison Committee is undertaking an inquiry on
strategic thinking to ensure the way that the Government are
wired enables a longer-term planning perspective.
I wanted to place those points on the record. In a 90-minute
debate we are not going to be able to get into all the whys and
wherefores, but I welcome the revision to the NNNPS and the two
related reviews that the Government have announced. It is two
cheers from me, though, because there is another element that we
need to consider. I look forward to the work of my Committee and
others contributing to that debate.
4.41pm
(Reading East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to be able to speak briefly in this afternoon’s
important debate on transport infrastructure. It is a great
pleasure to follow the Chair of the Transport Committee, the hon.
Member for Milton Keynes South (). I will be brief, but I want
to make a number of points to support the shadow Transport
Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Sefton Central (), and to highlight the
importance of investing in infrastructure to support economic
growth.
First, I will raise a few points that matter to my constituents,
some of which are immediate because they happened this week.
There were severe delays on the Great Western main line
yesterday. A number of colleagues, myself and many thousands of
commuters were left waiting for long periods, in some cases up to
two hours, because of a problem with the electricity supply to
the overhead wires. That has happened a number of times before
for various reasons. I urge the Minister to consult with the Rail
Minister and feed back the serious concerns of travellers on this
vital piece of infrastructure. The line connects London with
towns in the south-east, such as Reading, and is of strategic
importance across the whole UK, connecting Wales, Bristol, the
south-west and parts of the midlands with the capital city. It is
vital that train travellers can rely on this excellent service,
which normally allows swift and easy access to the heart of
London. It is now supported by the Elizabeth line, which is a
huge benefit to us all. However, there has been a series of
issues with the overhead wires, which I hope the Minister will
flag up. Will he or a colleague write to me to update me on the
problems experienced by passengers and to highlight the action
being taken to address them?
On a related issue of regional and national infrastructural
importance, I wanted to flag up the importance of getting a
sensible policy on smart motorways. In my part of England, we
have had a smart motorway installed along the M4 from west London
as far west as Theale, just beyond Reading. Unfortunately, the
work was carried out using the revised specification, which puts
refuges up to a mile apart. In my opinion and that of many
critics, that is too far apart to be genuinely safe. Will the
Minister look at that policy again? Other parts of the south of
England have been affected by a similar approach to upgrading the
motorway, such as the M27 around Southampton, Portsmouth and
neighbouring towns. Again, unfortunately, when the work was
carried out, a revised spec was used rather than the original
one, which had more frequent refuge points. Will the Minister
write to me and colleagues on that matter, which is of great
importance to our region and to the country as a whole?
Those two significant issues relate to existing infrastructure.
My third issue relates to forthcoming infrastructure. I urge the
Minister to implore his colleagues to get the Government’s act
together on the electrification of vehicles. Obviously, the
Government backtracked on the 2030 target—sadly and wrongly, in
my opinion—and in addition they have made matters worse by not
achieving the intermediate steps they set out such as putting in
a suitable number of charging points at motorway service areas.
Range anxiety continues to be a major problem and is delaying the
purchase and uptake of electric vehicles in many cases. It would
be good if the Minister updated colleagues on progress.
I understand that the Government have not achieved their target
of about six charging points in each service area—that seems a
low bar—and that we may have something like four per service area
on average at the moment. Even if six were achieved, that would
be way below the potential needed for vehicles if they are truly
to be electrified quickly and effectively so that we can hit our
targets for tackling the climate emergency and boost British
production of electric cars, which is a success story in our
motor industry.
Those are some key strategic issues. If I may, Mr Deputy Speaker,
I will mention some areas not directly covered by the policy
statement but that many consider strategic priorities. We have
the appalling state of the road network as a whole with the
increase in potholes, which has possibly been exacerbated by
heavy rain and frosts this winter. That is a huge challenge for
the country as a whole. It affects many motorists, with people
having to pay for expensive repairs, and it is a huge safety
issue for both motorists and cyclists. I urge the Minister to
look at that again, as well as at the speed at which the backlog
in potholes is being tackled, and to support local authorities
taking a more progressive and imaginative approach. My council,
Reading Borough Council, has approached potholes with an “invest
to save” mentality, doing large sections rather than just filling
in individual potholes, and that seems to be tackling the backlog
more effectively than some neighbouring authorities—Oxfordshire
and Wokingham in particular—which are somewhat behind with their
pothole filling.
Other matters that many people see as strategically important but
are not under the statement’s remit include the encouraging of
walking and cycling. Only 1% of the transport budget is spent on
those important areas, yet their benefits to the country are
huge. As we heard earlier when considering the Pedicabs (London)
Bill, shifting people from cars to cycling allows more road space
for those who do have to drive—we are not able to create much
more road space—takes pollution out of the atmosphere, which is
vital, and can improve road safety and people’s health and
fitness. That is hugely important for the country, yet it gets
only 1% of transport spending. Surely we should be looking at
that again and trying to encourage it.
That includes improving safety in particular for pedestrians and
for women at night by improving lighting, crossings and other
measures. In my constituency, I commend local councillors, and
Will Cross in Redlands ward in particular, who has ably
championed the need for a pedestrian crossing on Upper Redlands
Road. It should not take that much effort from a dedicated
councillor to deliver something like that; it should be much more
routine, with more pots of money available, and be considered in
aggregate a national priority. Even if individual schemes are
small, their overall effect is significant.
Thank you for indulging me slightly on those last few points, Mr
Deputy Speaker. I am grateful for the chance to speak and
appreciate the Minister offering to write to me on some of the
more immediate and significant matters.4.48pm
(Christchurch) (Con)
I have just a short contribution to make. The “National Networks
National Policy Statement” refers at paragraph 3.2 to the fact
that
“Population growth and economic growth are the most critical
influences on travel demand.”
We know that the Government are much preoccupied with the need
for economic growth. I wish them well, and I hope that we make a
lot more progress than we have, particularly in economic growth
per capita in the last 10 years. However, on the other aspect, we
do not have any national policy statement about population
growth, yet it is fundamental to all policy making done in
government and in this House. Why do we not have a national
policy statement about population growth? How is it that we have,
by happenstance, allowed our population to increase by the best
part of another million over the past 18 months? How can that
continue? There is a reference in the document to projected
growth over the next 20 or 30 years, but there is no basis for
that.
It seems to me that underlying all our policymaking should be a
policy about population growth. How many people do we wish to
have in our country? What do we think is the sustainable maximum
population? How is that population going to be looked after in
terms of the age profile? Are we encouraging more of our own
people in this country to have children and sustain the
population in that way, as they do very effectively in Hungary?
Or do we have a different policy, which, effectively, is to
import labour into this country, thereby increasing the
population exponentially?
I am not expecting my hon. Friend the Minister to come up with a
definitive answer on this, but I think the point is worth
raising. Why is it that we have a national policy statement on
national networks, but we do not have one on population growth? I
hope, Mr Deputy Speaker, that we will be able to get one quite
soon.
4.51pm
(Brighton, Pavilion)
(Green)
Once again, the Government seem to be dodging scrutiny. This
national policy statement for national networks has significant
implications for the delivery of our climate and environment
targets, yet rather than giving MPs the opportunity to properly
debate it, this Government have, it feels to me at least, rather
cynically left the approval of it to the very last minute before
the Easter recess, when many colleagues have already returned to
their constituencies. There are barely 10 people here in the
Chamber this afternoon.
There are many concerns, in my view, about this particular
statement, but I wish to focus in my brief intervention on the
climate and nature consequences. As the Minister is well aware,
when the review of the NPS was announced in July 2021, it was
explained by the then Secretary of State on the basis that the
2014 NPS predated the UK’s commitment to net zero by 2050, the
sixth carbon budget and the transport decarbonisation plan.
Aligning the NPS with our climate targets is, of course,
absolutely essential, not least because about 10% of the UK’s CO2
emissions come from driving on the strategic road network and,
according to the National Audit Office, transport-related
emissions between 1990 and 2022 were reduced by just 11%—the
lowest of any sector. There is a real problem here and, frankly,
this policy statement fundamentally fails to rise to the occasion
and to the challenge that that poses.
In its 2023 progress report to Parliament, the Committee on
Climate Change recommended what it called
“a systematic review of all current and proposed road
schemes”,
with only those that
“meaningfully support cost-effective delivery of Net Zero and
climate adaptation”
to be taken forward. Perhaps the Minister can explain to me why
his Department has refused to undertake any assessment, and why
the NPS essentially reverts to the current pre-net zero carbon
test. In the absence of such a review, can he explain how he
plans to close the gaping delivery gap when it comes to cutting
transport emissions?
Just last week, the Green Alliance think-tank published the
latest update of its net zero policy tracker, which revealed that
transport accounts for 70%—yes, 70%—of the overall policy gap for
delivering the fifth carbon budget, so this is a huge issue, with
37% of the required emission cuts having absolutely no policy set
out for them. Crucially, Green Alliance suggests that measures
such as reviewing road building and redirecting funding into
public transport would help to close the policy gap, so why is it
not in this plan?
Rather than making our constituents ever more dependent on
private cars, this NPS should have set out the need for bold rail
and urban transport upgrades. It should have been about levelling
up public transport outside London and improving cross-country
rail. The first priority of the transport decarbonisation plan is
modal shift, yet the NPS has no target for that. In fact, seven
of the eight Department for Transport scenarios on which it is
based assume exactly the wrong kind of modal shift—in other
words, a shift to cars. Will the Minister explain why the
statement does not reference the 2030 target for 50% of urban
journeys to be made by active travel?
Looking at our environmental targets, it is profoundly
disappointing that the NPS fails to set out the implications of
the new Environment Act 2021 targets at the strategic or scheme
level. It is just not good enough to simply have due regard to
some of the targets.
Not only is this NPS unclear—as observed by Professor Stephen
Glaister, former chair of the Office of Rail and Road and
director of the RAC Foundation, who told MPs that
“I do not see clarity in that draft myself”
but it fundamentally fails to set out a new direction of travel
to ensure the delivery of our climate and environmental targets.
In the age of climate crisis, we need more than passing
references to net zero and muddled attempts to justify the roads
programme. We need urgent and bold action to decarbonise the
transport system. This statement clearly does not provide
that.
4.56pm
I will try to address some of the points that have been
raised.
The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Sefton Central (), mentioned freight. He will
be aware that we published the future freight strategy, which is
a long-term plan, in June 2022. It was developed with industry
and sets out a cross-modal approach to achieve the long-term
vision of a freight and logistics sector that is economically
efficient, reliant, resilient, environmentally sustainable and
valued by society. I am the co-chair of the Freight Council,
alongside Isabel Dedring, who is an independent industry
representative. The “Generation Logistics” campaign, which we
hosted in the House of Commons, and the work that the Road
Haulage Association and others are doing to drive forward true
change in freight should genuinely be admired.
Turning to the points raised by the Chair of the Transport
Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South
(), I take his two out of three
cheers as being damned by faint praise. However, at the same
time, no one is pretending that the statement is perfect. It is a
work in progress—we all understand that. The document runs to
over 100 pages and has been available for public consultation and
oral hearings, and the Transport Committee has done an assessment
of it, to which the Government have responded, so with respect,
it is a substantial approach to this particular issue. I endorse
the comments that he made about the future plans.
The hon. Member for Reading East (), whom I will insult by calling
a friend of mine, raised a number of points, and I will ensure
that the Rail Minister responds to him. On the electrification of
vehicles, I push back gently. One has to be aware that the
network of publicly available charge points is rapidly
increasing, with almost 57,000 installed—a 47% increase since
March 2023. Clearly, more can be done—no one would dispute
that—and I echo and share his desire. He makes the fair point
that we need more charging points, and I take that on board. As
for the Great Western delays, the Rail Minister will respond on
that.
The hon. Member for Reading East and others raised the state of
the roads. The allegation was made that there is no vision either
to support local authorities or to address that, and that there
is no long-term levelling-up plan for the north. With respect,
the Prime Minister’s decision on HS2 has done a number of key
things. The first, obviously, is that £8.3 billion has gone out
to local authorities up and down the country, responding to the
HS2 profile over 11 years. On average, that is a 30% increase in
funding over the past year for every local authority—genuinely
game-changing amounts of money—and the long-term funding pattern
allows local authorities to invest in the future. That is
something that every local authority says it wants more of.
Turning to the aspiration to support the north, one of the key
decisions was to ensure that almost all of the HS2 money was
spent in the north and/or the midlands as the areas affected by
HS2. That is why the money is going into Network North and into
the local transport fund that was announced, which has seen
hundreds of millions of pounds going out to lots of different
local authorities. Some local authorities have seen their
transport budget increased by nine times.
The types of announcements that the Government have made also
outline their direction of travel in relation to this issue. With
respect, I will outline five things that the Government have done
in the past 10 days alone. I was proud to announce the safer
roads fund, which is spending a further £35 million in multiple
locations across the country to try to enhance their road safety.
Last Friday, the Secretary of State announced the ZEBRA
scheme—for those who do not know, that is the zero-emission bus
regional areas. There are dozens of locations up and down the
country with hundreds of zero-emission buses funded and supported
by this Government.
On Saturday, I announced active travel fund 4, which is worth
£101 million, and saw some of the schemes that are being put in
place in Darlington with the excellent Mayor, , and my hon. Friend the Member
for Darlington (). I have also been with my
hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford () to see the £1.2 million that
is going into the Medway active travel scheme. Clearly, the
Automated Vehicles Bill is something that this Government have
also championed.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport ()
Hear, hear!
My hon. Friend and co-Minister, and partner in optimism—I think
that is the best way of putting it—is addressing some of those
points.
There was further criticism in relation to the issue of climate
change. I would gently push back: clearly, there has been a lot
of change in Government policy since the national networks
national policy statement was designated in 2015, particularly
the Government’s commitment to achieving net zero by 2050. The
transport decarbonisation plan, published in 2021, set out how
transport’s contribution to net zero will be delivered, and the
Environment Act 2021 introduced a more stringent approach to
environmental protection and opportunities for enhancement of the
natural environment. We have also seen the publication of road
investment strategy 2 and the integrated rail plan, as well as
support for rail freight, including the announcement of the rail
freight growth target in December 2023. The NNNPS has been
reviewed to reflect those changes in Government policy and to
remain a robust framework for decision making on nationally
significant infrastructure project schemes. Clearly, there are
ongoing challenges in certain courts to the development of roads,
and we await the decisions of those courts.
My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch ( ) tempted me to become the
Home Secretary. As we all know, the chances of that are our old
friends slim and none, but I will take up with the Home Secretary
the question of whether there should be a population growth
assessment.
I thank all colleagues for their contributions today.
Will the Minister give way?
No. I genuinely commend the NNNPS, which is a mighty piece of
work, to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House approves the National Policy Statement for
National Networks, which was laid before this House on 6 March.
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