Gareth Bacon MP: speeches

Speeches

• 5 Nov 2025 · House Building: London · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell, and to take part in this debate about Government support for house building in London. As is the case for all hon. Members here today, this issue is of great importance to my constituents and to me, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr French) for securing this important debate. I also thank all hon. Members for their contributions. London is Europe’s wealthiest city, one of the world’s most desirable destinations and the capital of our great country. I am deeply proud to have represented part of it for the past 28 years, having previously served for 23 years as a local councillor in a London borough—a period that overlapped with my 13 years as a London Assembly member—and been the Member of Parliament for the wonderful people of Orpington since 2019. What we have seen in recent years in Greater London is a constantly worsening housing shortage, and a mayor seemingly completely incapable of tackling a problem that is spiralling out of control. Sir Sadiq Khan has been mayor for nearly 10 years, and continues to oversee one of the greatest housing failures this country has ever seen. I can remember sitting in the chamber at City Hall in his first year as mayor when he boasted about having negotiated the highest housing funding settlement in the history of the mayoralty. He was awarded £4.82 billion to deliver 116,000 affordable homes between 2016 and 2021, and a further £4 billion to deliver 35,000 affordable homes between 2021 and 2026. That is a total of £8.82 billion to deliver 151,000 homes in a decade between 2016 and 2026. Naturally, he gave no credit at all to the Conservative Government who gave him that money, but let us gloss over that. Instead, let us focus on Sadiq Khan’s record. To date, 77,622 affordable homes have been completed from the two programmes—barely half of what was envisaged, with only six months to go. Including those programmes and other house building, in his almost decade-long tenure at City Hall, he has averaged 8,240 affordable homes per year. That compares with an average of 11,750 per year between 2008 and 2016 under his predecessor Boris Johnson. That is a 30% decrease under Sadiq Khan, despite what he boasted at the outset was the highest housing funding settlement in history. The fact is that development has become so costly and over-regulated on Sadiq Khan’s watch that, incredibly, as my hon. Friends the Members for Old Bexley and Sidcup and for Bromley and Biggin Hill (Peter Fortune) pointed out, 80% of housing developments finished in London last year received planning permission under the London plan set out by Boris Johnson before he left office as Mayor of London in 2016, rather than under Sadiq Khan’s London plan.

• 4 Nov 2025 · Employer National Insurance Contributions: Business Impact · Hansard source

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  19. What assessment she has made of the potential impact of the increase in employer national insurance contributions on businesses.

• 4 Nov 2025 · Employer National Insurance Contributions: Business Impact · Hansard source

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  It was always blindingly obvious that increasing employer national insurance would lead to an increase in business costs, which would lead to higher prices hitting working people directly, and to rises in inflation. Sure enough, inflation has risen steadily under this Government, and it is now at almost twice its recommended level. At the last Budget, we were told it was necessary to raise taxes on businesses by £25 billion to pay for the NHS, and large amounts of money have indeed been paid to unionised workers, but just yesterday the Office for National Statistics announced that NHS productivity had fallen by 1.5% since Labour took office. Can the Chancellor explain what exactly my Orpington businesses are paying more tax for?

• 30 Oct 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T7. Earlier, the Secretary of State said that he was committed to growing our car industry, but British car manufacturers face huge fines for selling cars that consumers actually want, while the Government use taxpayers’ money to subsidise the purchase of foreign cars with Chinese batteries in them. What are the Government’s plans to end the nonsensical zero emission vehicles mandate, and to restore a normal market, from which our car industry would benefit?

• 23 Oct 2025 · Building Safety Regulator · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond, and to take part in this debate on the building safety regulator. I thank the hon. Members for Milton Keynes North (Chris Curtis) and for Northampton South (Mike Reader) for securing this debate and for their opening speeches, both of which I thought were extremely reasonable and set the tone for what has been a largely reasonable debate in which there is much common ground. It is a primary duty of any Government to ensure that everyone has a safe and high-quality home to live in. Progress has been made in recent years to ensure the nation’s housing stock, with the share of non-decent and unsafe homes witnessing a decline in the last decade. Official statistics from the National Centre for Social Research, funded by the Government, show that under the last Government the prevalence of non-decent homes fell from 17% in 2019 to 15% in 2023, with falls across every tenure. The focus of this debate is the building safety regulator and its performance since being established by the last Government. Through the Building Safety Act, the BSR was created with the intention of regulating higher-risk buildings, raising the safety standards of all buildings, and helping professionals working in the sector. It was established in good faith, with sensible aims that any Government would agree were needed at the time; and, pertinently, as I think every speaker has referred to this afternoon, it was done in the light of the tragic loss of 72 lives in the appalling Grenfell Tower fire. As a former chairman of the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority, I was taken to Grenfell Tower by the London Fire Brigade a week after the fire. I went to the top of the building and saw at first hand the devastation that had been wreaked there and the consequences of years of inadequate building safety control, so I believe the motivations behind the creation of the BSR were entirely understandable. However, there is simply no point in denying that the BSR is not working today as it was originally intended. The truth is that it is proving to be a major additional contributor to a malaise that Britain has been suffering from pretty much since the turn of the millennium. Put simply, we struggle to build. Britain is now constrained within a self-imposed straitjacket of over-zealous red tape, which prevents much-needed development while at the same time causing absurd outcomes such as £100 million bat sanctuaries. The context of this debate is worth noting. As we know, the Government have ambitious targets for housing delivery, having insisted that they will build 1.5 million new homes by the end of this Parliament; but with at least 25% of this Parliament now behind us, they are miles behind schedule, and barely a third of what should have been built by now is actually completed. The new Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, the right hon. Member for Streatham and Croydon North (Steve Reed), has publicly said that his job should be on the line over whether or not he meets the target. Unfortunately for him, nobody believes that this Government will meet their housing target in just one Parliament: not the Office for Budget Responsibility, not Savills, not the Home Builders Federation, not Professor Paul Cheshire of the London School of Economics and not the National Federation of Builders—the list goes on and on. In London the situation is particularly dire, not least because of some of the policies in the Mayor of London’s London plan. A further problem coming down the line is the possibility of the Government’s making changes to the landfill tax. At present, potentially toxic landfill is taxed at £126.15 per tonne, whereas harmless inert waste such as soil or concrete is taxed at £4.05 per tonne, and nothing at all if it is used to fill up former quarries. However, there are strong rumours circulating that the Government are thinking of abolishing the quarry exemption and switching all landfill up to the higher rate. Building industry experts have estimated that that rise, which is in excess of 3,000%, will add up to £28,000 to the construction cost per home. That is especially an issue in London, where the high proportion of apartment buildings generates much more landfill than elsewhere. The impact of such a change on the construction industry is obvious. As inflation sits stubbornly at nearly 4%, twice the target level, alongside anaemic growth and increased costs to the industry, including materials and fuel, additional costs to the building trade are stacking up. It is in that context that we need to consider the performance of the building safety regulator. The BSR is not only moving too slowly to fulfil its purpose, but wielding the axe to too many of the applications crossing its desk. As the hon. Member for Northampton South said, the Building Safety Regulator rejects about 70% of applications to begin construction, compared with roughly 10% to 15% of applications that get rejected in the wider British planning system. Something is very clearly wrong here. When 150 high- rise residential construction projects are delayed across the UK because of the BSR, when schemes are delayed 38 weeks longer than the target time for approval, and when 60% of affected schemes are in London, the city with the highest need and the greatest demand, it is clear that we must work together to realise a better future for the BSR and to unchain the industry from some of the restraints it currently wears. The Building Safety Regulator is all too often a handbrake on development, rather than an accelerator of safe and effective development. I welcome the Minister to her place in her first Westminster Hall debate, and I know she will be eager to tell us about the Government’s attempts to reform the BSR and solve this issue in June earlier this year. On the face of it, increasing the BSR’s headcount could be a positive move, but only if the staff brought in have the requisite technical expertise in building and fire safety and are thus able to accelerate the planning process. By simply increasing the BSR’s capacity, the Government have not yet been able, as was promised in an MHCLG press release, “to enhance the review of newbuild applications, unblock delays and boost sector confidence”, because it has not solved the core issue: the number of application rejections. As the British Property Federation has argued, improved dialogue with applicants and more guidance on the BSR application process would go a long way to speeding things up by vastly increasing the likelihood that applications are right first time, rather than their having to be revised after being rejected. In the age of artificial intelligence, mandating machine-readable submissions and building an electronic file management system that ingests structured data would be immeasurably useful, enabling the use of commercially available AI to triage completeness, flag inconsistencies and vastly speed up the process for both the applicants and the regulator. As was said earlier—I believe by the hon. Member for Kensington and Bayswater (Joe Powell), but I stand to be corrected—introducing greater transparency around the BSR’s performance is certainly welcome. The new fast-track process seems like a good idea, although it remains to be seen whether it is effective, but clearly more needs to be done. Reforming the operation of the BSR should not be about making developments less safe. Changes must instead tackle the fundamental problem: being process-focused to the point that we fail to deliver. That is particularly true in places such as London, where it has now become difficult to build anything at all. The existing urban environment lends itself to denser developments, which are inevitably viewed as higher risk under the BSR and therefore face very lengthy delays and huge additional construction costs. Consequently, there is a danger that we risk urban sprawl into the countryside and the destruction of the green belt, with homes being forced into communities with an inability to meet the infrastructure demands of all new residents. It is important that all sides work constructively, across Government and Opposition, to deliver remediation, building safety and the best outcomes for local communities. This debate has encouraged me that we can work across the House to tackle burdensome regulation in the housing and planning industry, including where the Building Safety Regulator is playing its well-intentioned, but undeniably imperfect role. That requires real and serious focus from the Government, who will have to act far faster than they have done to date. I will listen with interest to what the Minister says.

• 21 Oct 2025 · Ending Homelessness · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford, and to take part in this debate about the progress on ending homelessness. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) and the hon. Member for Liverpool Wavertree (Paula Barker) both for securing this debate and for their opening remarks. I know that both those hon. Members have made combatting homelessness a central part of the force that drives them in Parliament. As we have heard, their excellent work as co-chairs of the all-party parliamentary group for ending homelessness has been solid, earnest and methodical, and has produced robust conclusions. My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East in particular has made a demonstrable difference in this field, with his 2017 private Member’s Bill, which went on to become the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, which I will refer to shortly. I do not doubt that all Members gathered here today share a strong desire to end rough sleeping and homelessness for good. Homelessness is a social tragedy, wherever it occurs and for whatever reason. No one in our society should be forced to live on the streets, and it is incumbent on us all to do our best to ensure that constituents can live in a safe, decent and secure home. Although progress was made to that end under the previous Government, work remains to be done, as my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East said in his opening speech. I offer my full support to the Government for their shared desire to end homelessness once and for all. As policymakers have increasingly come to appreciate, homelessness does not simply begin at the point someone finds themselves on the street; rather, it is rooted in long-term causes, whether persistent issues with mental health or substance abuse, offenders stuck between prison and the streets, with no place to go, or young people in care leaving the system without a fixed destination. The Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, sponsored by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East and implemented by the previous Government, recognised that fact in law, placing an enhanced duty on local authorities to intervene at an early stage in an effort to prevent homelessness from occurring. Over 740,000 households have been prevented from becoming homeless or were supported into settled accommodation since the introduction of the 2017 Act—an achievement that should be acknowledged. As my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East and the hon. Member for Liverpool Wavertree said in their opening speeches, prevention must be at the heart of any national strategy for tackling homelessness, which is why I welcome the Government’s decision to continue the previous Administration’s approach of offering more effective support to prevent rough sleeping from happening in the first place. At the heart of the previous Administration’s approach was the rough sleeping initiative, which saw pioneering work across society between local authorities, voluntary organisations and healthcare providers to tailor support where homelessness occurs, meeting the individual needs of people facing homelessness and helping them to build an independent life once off the streets. Ending rough sleeping for good will require a whole-Government and a whole-society effort to be achievable, which is why it is vital that there is a sense of purpose from the very highest levels of Government to drive change. Although the Government’s ambition to carry on this work is laudable, it is disappointing that the full cross-Government strategy for ending homelessness that they promised in their manifesto has yet to emerge, despite repeated promises from Ministers of its publication. Commentators such as the Institute for Government have already warned that a lack of co-ordination between Government Departments is undermining progress when tackling homelessness, preventing public bodies from working together to be proactive and focus on the root causes of homelessness. The previous Government’s “Ending rough sleeping for good” strategy brought together seven Departments from across Government to that end. I fear that, without a similar statement of intent from the current Government, their approach to ending homelessness will fall short and fail those in need. The consequences of the lack of clarity are already becoming clear, not least in the effects of the Government’s Renters’ Rights Bill on the housing market. Although Ministers and Labour Members continue to claim that that legislation will make it easier to find a home, the message from the private rented sector appears to be quite the opposite, with 41% of private landlords saying, at the end 2024, that they were planning to sell their properties. The Government’s proposals look set to cut supply in the private rented sector, which will in turn inevitably risk driving rents up and making it harder for people to find a rented home. That is exactly what we have seen in Scotland, where similar measures to what the Government are proposing were implemented in 2017. In England, we have already seen a seven-year drop, with Savills reporting that the number of rental properties on its books dropped by 42% in quarter 1 of this year compared with the same period in 2024. That means 42% fewer homes available for families, less choice and more pressure on rents. That is not theoretical; it is happening now, and the Renters’ Rights Bill is accelerating that trend. Of equal concern is what effect an increasing number of people who are unable to rent privately will have on the temporary accommodation provision. An accessible private sector is vital to providing the housing stock that reduces homelessness pressure. If the Government are serious about reducing the demands on local authorities for temporary accommodation, they need to do far more than simply announce stop-gap measures. That is especially pressing, as has been repeated during this debate, when 172,420 children in England are living in temporary housing, which is up 7.6% on this time last year. Only by making a concerted effort to reduce the cost of living and make private housing more affordable will the Government get people out of temporary accommodation and into long-term secure homes of their own. Sadly, the signs on that front are not encouraging, and the same goes for the Government’s plans to deliver 1.5 million homes. The most recent estimates for additional net dwellings for 2024-25 show the Government on course to miss their house building target by more than 100,000 homes this year. According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the latest spending review, which promised more funding for the affordable homes budget, is less generous than on first appearance, with funding hardly different from previous levels. I am sure hon. Members will agree that Britain desperately needs new affordable homes to ensure the long-term supply of housing for those currently without a place to call their own. That is why under the previous Government, 800,000 people bought their first home, through schemes such as Help to Buy and stamp duty relief. Yet in the current economic climate, more social and affordable homes look increasingly difficult to deliver. Ending homelessness must not be simply an idealistic ambition, but a clearly defined goal, with policies set out to achieve it. None of that is possible without a clear vision of what steps need to be taken. I urge the Government finally to publish—

• 21 Oct 2025 · Ending Homelessness · Hansard source

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  With great respect to the hon. Gentleman, given that I have to allow time for the Minister and the two proposers to speak, I cannot give way. I urge the Government to finally publish the strategy in full and provide much-needed clarity to the individuals and organisations on the frontline of tackling homelessness about how they plan to support them to do so. No amount of good intentions or Government interventions can compensate for the unaffordable economic reality facing those trying to find permanent housing. I further urge the Government to consider the long-term consequences of many of their housing policies. A private rented sector, where supply is driven out of the market by over-regulation and costs that continue to rise, can lead only to even more people being unable to find a secure place to live—a fate the Government must do everything they can to avoid. I end my remarks by calling on the Minister to respond more quickly and effectively to ease the temporary accommodation issue, to work with local communities to supply good-quality homes for families, and to publish the homelessness strategy, which was promised more than a year ago.

• 13 Oct 2025 · Social and Affordable Housing · Hansard source

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  It falls to me to open the bowling for the Opposition Front Bench, so I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on his appointment and welcome him to his place today. The previous Government awarded the Mayor of London almost £9 billion of funding to build a total of 151,000 affordable homes in London. The second tranche of that money amounted to £4 billion, which was to build 35,000 homes between 2021 and 2026. To date, only 997 have been completed, with 443 of those homes being acquisitions rather than newly built. What plans does the Secretary of State have to hold the Mayor of London to account for this lamentable failure?

• 13 Oct 2025 · Social and Affordable Housing · Hansard source

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  The whole House will have heard that the Secretary of State has no plans to intervene on the Mayor of London. Under section 340 of the Greater London Authority Act 1999, the Secretary of State has the power to direct the Mayor of London to review and revise specific policies of the London plan if they are seen to be hindering housing delivery. There are a plethora of policies—including an obsession with dual facing and twin staircasing and a bizarre aversion to corridors—that developers are united in saying are massively hindering development in the country’s largest city, which has the highest demand for affordable housing. The Secretary of State is holding all the cards and the purse strings. Why will he not intervene?

• 9 Jul 2025 · Draft Transport Act 2000 (Air Traffic Services) (Prescribed Terms) Regulations 2025 · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Jeremy. A glance at the draft regulations might give the impression of a proposal that is short and easily resolved but, as the Minister’s speech demonstrates, this is not an issue with simple answers. In fact, the regulations are part of a wider topic of airspace modernisation, which is a matter of considerable complexity. I have no doubt the Minister is aware, from what I suspect are hundreds of pages of reports and strategies placed on his desk by officials since he he arrived in office, of the significant work that was conducted by the previous Government, the CAA and a wide range of other stakeholders on airspace modernisation. Recognising the importance of airspace modernisation, the previous Government provided £9.2 million to maintain progress and enable sponsors to co-ordinate their programmes during an existential period for the industry during the pandemic. That work has, without doubt, gained fresh impetus following the Chancellor’s announcement of airport expansion earlier this year. While that announcement appeared to have been made by the Treasury without a full appreciation of the scale of the task involved, this draft statutory instrument is an important part of delivering on that intention. At the time, I said to the Transport Secretary that the Opposition support aviation expansion in principle, because it delivers economic growth. I reiterate that stance today, and we will not divide the Committee this afternoon. I do, however, have some questions for the Minister, which I will come to at the close of my remarks. The arguments in favour of airspace modernisation and the actions taken to facilitate it are obvious, and the Minister has outlined many of them. Anyone who has returned home from holiday and found themselves circling the airport endlessly will welcome the measures to improve the efficiency of our air corridors. In September last year, easyJet published its work illustrating the potential for emissions reductions through greater efficiency. The Government’s own impact assessment suggests that the current proposal will result in substantial fuel savings over a 15-year appraisal period. At a time when the Government are increasing costs for travellers, it is all the more important that the draft regulations allow operators to fly more efficiently and, I hope, pass those savings on to passengers. The aviation sector is one of the UK’s most successful industries, and our focus should be on how we support and improve it, not hold it back. In that light, not to embrace this opportunity to increase efficiency, to reduce fuel use and emissions, and potentially to reduce delays and noise would be a significant mistake. However, it is not that simple, because airspace modernisation will inevitably create winners and losers. While it will deliver greater fuel efficiency, reduced flying times and associated cost savings to airlines and, I hope, to passengers, changing flight paths will of course be a double-edged sword. Some people who live under a flight path will be removed from it and no doubt grateful for that, but others who do not live under flight paths now may may do so in the future; they can be expected, naturally, to be far from happy. As with airport expansion, the creation of the UKADS to simplify that process may also face challenges. While a majority of the stakeholders supported the principle during the consultation, 33% of those who did not oppose the proposal did in fact answer “maybe” in their response. That included one third of the respondents from the commercial aviation sector, whose buy-in the Government will need for the proposal to succeed. NATS, the only organisation the Government say is capable of handling those responsibilities—we do not dissent from that—responded to the consultation by stating that therefore “the accountabilities and responsibilities of UKADS must be more clearly defined.” That is not to say that the proposal will not work, but I believe that further clarity is needed on some broad questions. For example, can the Government confirm that the necessary skillset is available to lead the changes? Will the Minister provide assurances to smaller airports that the structure of the new arrangements will recognise and reflect the unique challenges that those locations face? Does he believe that there will be sufficient expertise within the UKADS to support airspace modernisation outside London in a timely manner, so that progress elsewhere is not held back simply because the initial focus is on London’s vastly more complicated airspace? Finally, I will address communication and transparency. During the consultation and following the policy announcement, it seems that some local organisations responded negatively and suggested that the concerns of local communities were being overlooked or ignored. I therefore ask the Government to give serious consideration to how they can provide maximum transparency around the process. In that light, my final question is: will the Minister commit to ensuring that the new body communicates its proposals with full transparency?

• 8 Jul 2025 · Road and Rail Projects · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I thank the Secretary of State for her statement and for advance sight of it. Make no mistake: infrastructure is the connective tissue that binds our economy together. Our railways and strategic roads are the veins and arteries of our economy, connecting businesses up and down the country. That is why these announcements are to be welcomed, just as they were when they were previously announced by the last Conservative Government. For example, the M54 to M6 link road and the Portishead branch line were both announced and granted permission under the last Conservative Government. The new stations at Wellington and Cullompton and the midlands rail hub were all approved under the previous Conservative Government. The development consent order for the A66 northern trans-Pennine project was signed in March last year under the last Conservative Government. [ Interruption. ] The Secretary of State calls from a sedentary position, “Where was the money?” As she well knows, that was in the last spending period, and the forthcoming spending review was always going to be after the general election. I could go on and on, because every single scheme announced by the Government today is the result of the work of the previous Conservative Government. I therefore cannot muster the same enthusiasm as her when it comes to today’s announcement. The truth, whether they know it or not, is that the Secretary of State and her Ministers have been sent to this House today to stage a distraction, because in recent weeks we have seen the economic credibility and political unity of this Government implode. We have seen the Chancellor, who promised to maintain an “iron grip” on the public finances, forced to contend with unfunded U-turn after unfunded U-turn, all because the Prime Minister has lost control of their Back Benchers. We know what it means: more taxes for families and for businesses—the Chancellor has admitted it herself. We also know the impact that this will have on the economy. In the last few months the Office for Budget Responsibility, the Bank of England and the OECD have all downgraded the UK’s growth forecasts—by as much as half, in the case of the OBR—so I am afraid that the Government are kidding themselves if they believe that reannouncing transport infrastructure projects that are already in the pipeline will revive an economy that is faltering after a disastrous first year in office. With the tax burden reaching an historic high, inflation almost double the Bank of England’s target and inactivity rising because the Government are seemingly incapable of implementing any kind of meaningful welfare reform, far from fixing the foundations, they are actively undermining them. Quite aside from the fact that these reannouncements on their own will not revive our faltering economy, no deadline has been set for the completion of the projects, and in the light of that I must question whether the funding for them is as secure as the right hon. Lady claims. Given that the OBR is expected to downgrade growth and productivity forecasts—not to mention Labour’s U-turns—we know that the Government have created a black hole of billions of pounds in the public finances, so I must ask the right hon. Lady how confident she is that funds will not be cut from these projects to fill the Chancellor’s economic black hole. Does she recognise that these projects alone will not revive an economy that is faltering under the Government’s economic mismanagement, and will she give a timeframe for them not just to be started, but to be completed? What we have seen in recent weeks is the following: a Prime Minister whose unpopularity with the public is apparently exceeded only by his unpopularity with his own Back Benchers and who is now clearly at their mercy; a Chancellor who is wilting under the strain; and a Government with no new ideas, out of steam after only one year in office and forced to rely on ideas thought up by other people. It is no surprise that Ministers would like to speak about anything other than their own record in office, but Britain deserves better than this.

• 26 Jun 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Both Grand Central and Hull Trains have seen their passenger numbers increase dramatically since the pandemic, by more than 50% and 20% respectively. That is a significant increase compared with other operators. Why does the right hon. Lady think that might be?

• 26 Jun 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I was not hoping to trade statistics— I was hoping that the right hon. Lady would answer the question. I will provide the answer: it is because they are open access operators. They have to compete for passengers by providing a service that passengers want at a price they are prepared to pay, and it is clearly working. Why have the Government indicated to the industry that they are not supportive of open access by stating their opposition to eight of the nine proposals submitted in February?

• 25 Jun 2025 · Department for Transport · Hansard source

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  My right hon. Friend is a doughty champion for her Aldridge constituents. I share her disappointment. It is not the first time I have heard her raise that disappointment in this Chamber in the past few months and—

• 25 Jun 2025 · Department for Transport · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to respond on behalf of His Majesty’s Opposition. I thank the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) for securing this important debate. Transport has always been about more than how we get from A to B. Infrastructure is the connective tissue of our economy, and investment in infrastructure can propel economic growth. I think the whole House would agree with that statement. In that light, I welcome the fact that the spending review confirmed that capital investment, excluding spending on HS2, will increase at a real-terms annual growth rate of 3.9% between 2025-26 and 2029-30. The Government have outlined where much of this capital will be directed in the spending review and the 10-year infrastructure plan, and I am pleased that many of these projects align with the commitments set out in the previous Government’s Network North plan. I look forward to the publication of the infrastructure pipeline in July to see further information.

• 25 Jun 2025 · Department for Transport · Hansard source

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  No, I suspect it will not be the last time I hear it. There will be occasions when Labour Members fail to read the previous Government’s announcements, so for their benefit let me point out how the funding sums promised to authorities by the previous Government have been closely replicated, in some cases identically replicated, by those promised in this Government’s spending review announcements. For example, for West Yorkshire, £2.115 billion was promised in 2023, and £2.115 billion in 2025; for Greater Manchester, £2.47 billion was promised in 2023, and £2.47 billion in 2025; for the Liverpool city region, £1.58 billion was promised in 2023, and £1.58 billion in 2025; and for West Midlands, £2.65 billion was promised in 2023, and £2.4 billion in 2025. I could go on, but Members will recognise the point. The estimates and the spending review are not new and they are not innovative. Turning to the substance of the Government’s plans, I want to take this opportunity to examine some of the assumptions underpinning this spending review. I am afraid those assumptions are flawed. The first relates to the supposed benefits of nationalisation. The spending review anticipates that the Department for Transport’s resource departmental expenditure limits, which is its day-to-day revenue spending, will fall by 5% in real terms during the next three years. I do not dispute that it is possible to make savings in the Department for Transport, but I do question the means by which the Government expect to deliver those savings. The spending review claims: “Resource DEL funding falls in real terms over the period, primarily driven by a declining rail passenger services subsidy as passenger ridership and revenue continue to recover post COVID-19 and efficiencies and savings are made through public ownership.” This is another entry in the ever-growing list of benefits that Labour claims nationalisation will deliver—lower fares, no strikes, better services and now lower spending. Let us be clear: this is political daydreaming, not economic reality. The first train operating company to be brought into public ownership by the Government was South Western Railway, and we have already seen unexpected costs with its rolling stock. Credible reports show that mistakes made by the Government will cost the taxpayer an anticipated £250 million more. The Transport Secretary herself has admitted that nationalisation is not a silver bullet. She is right, but the narrative presented in the spending review and these estimates continues to rely on assumptions that remain unproven. Labour’s ideological plan to nationalise even the best performing rail operators will benefit neither passengers nor taxpayers. Beyond the loss of private sector investment, nationalisation also poses a deep structural risk, because under a single nationalised employer, there will be enormous pressure to harmonise terms and conditions across the entire railway workforce. That may sound harmless or even desirable, but in practice it means the trade unions openly calling for levelling up pay, benefits and working practices to the most generous standards currently found in the system, and they have wasted no time in doing that. I am sure that their members will be delighted by that, but for the Government, the taxpayer and the fare payer, that has one inevitable outcome: rising costs, almost certainly with no corresponding rises in productivity. Far from delivering savings, this sets the stage for spiralling costs, renewed industrial action and even poorer services for passengers. Turning to the wider economic picture, the Government claim their infrastructure plans are “creating the conditions for sustainable economic growth in communities throughout the UK.” However, the truth is that the greatest barrier to growth in this country is not a lack of spending. How could it be when current levels of spending are just about the highest in our entire peacetime history? No, the greatest barrier to growth is the economic mismanagement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and this Labour Government. We know that to fund this increased spending, Labour has not got control of the welfare bill, or reduced the size of the state, but simply changed the fiscal rules to allow billions more in borrowing. More borrowing is certainly not the long-term answer—this is not free money. Britain already spends almost £106 billion a year just to service its debt. For context, those payments outweigh what we spend to protect our country not just from foreign threats, but from crime at home, because our debt-servicing payments exceed the combined amounts allocated in the spending review to the Ministry of Defence, the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice. That is not just unsustainable, but irresponsible. Higher spending and higher borrowing fuels inflation. It undermines growth and it blows a hole in the public finances. Of course, we all know how Labour plans to fill that hole—with higher taxes. Will the Transport Secretary urge the Chancellor to restore discipline to the public finances? I hope she does. Will she set a credible strategy to deliver efficiencies within the Department for Transport? I hope she does, so that come autumn we are not hit with yet another round of tax hikes. I thank hon. Members for their contributions to this estimates debate, exploring their priorities for Government spending, including those Members who presented a vision with which I might disagree. We must acknowledge that the Government continue to offer more questions than solutions. In transport, we are presented with legislation to change bus policy without the funding that we know will be required to implement it properly. We await pipeline plans, railway reform papers and road investment strategies. When I was appointed shadow Secretary of State, I was initially faced by the former Transport Secretary, the right hon. Member for Sheffield Heeley (Louise Haigh), who constantly declared that she wanted “to move fast and fix things.” —[ Official Report , 10 October 2024; Vol. 754, c. 446.] But nearly a year into this Government, it feels as though things are moving at the speed of a canal boat in reverse—very slowly and taking the country backwards. The problem is not the current Transport Secretary, or the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane), who is responding to the debate today. The problem emanates from No. 10 and No. 11 Downing Street, because when the captain and the first officer of the ship have no ideas of their own, refuse to scan the horizon and see it for what it is, rather than what they would wish it to be, the journey ends up lost and directionless. For the good of the country, I hope that the Government will come to understand that real change means supporting British business and backing the everyday commuter. In the meantime, I fear these estimates are indicative of a Government who are not listening, failing to heed the warnings and will continue steering the ship of state straight towards the iceberg.

• 18 Jun 2025 · HS2 Reset · Hansard source

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  I thank the Secretary of State for her statement and for updating the House on the initial findings of the HS2 reviews. I also thank her for advance notice and a copy of her statement. On the substance of the Secretary of State’s statement, I believe there is a broad consensus in this House on the central point that mistakes were made in the delivery of HS2. As she noted, costs more than doubled, the project has been repeatedly delayed, and the pandemic completely changed travel patterns. It undercut the assumptions that guided the original plans and caused construction costs to rise sharply across the world—by up to 40% in some cases—as a result of supply chain shortages as the world emerged from the crisis. It has long been apparent that HS2 was not going according to plan. In my first two years as a Member of this House, I sat on the Public Accounts Committee, then chaired by the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier). In the summer of 2021, we published a report on HS2 that raised serious concerns in a number of areas and contained recommendations for how to improve the project. In 2023, the previous Government conceded that HS2 was not going to plan and made fundamental changes to it. The result was the cancellation of the northern leg of HS2 and the creation of the Network North plan. Under that plan, £36 billion was to be diverted from the northern leg of HS2 to a multitude of transport projects that would benefit more people in more places and more quickly than the then Government believed the delivery of HS2 could. However, we also recognise that the path we took to reach that point was not perfect—far from it. I will not today pretend that the Network North plan was not a product of mistakes we made in the handling of HS2, because it clearly was. As a country, we must learn from those mistakes and we must not repeat them. On that note, and with your permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to express my gratitude to Mark Wild, the chief executive officer of HS2, for his continued efforts to support the delivery of the project. Recognising his leadership in rescuing the Crossrail project in London, it was the noble Lord Harper—then Secretary of State for Transport—who appointed him to lead HS2 in May 2024. We are all encouraged to see him playing a leading role in overseeing the correction and completion of the project, because his experience will be invaluable in helping to get it back on track. I also welcome the appointment of Mike Brown as the new chairman of HS2 Ltd. Like the Secretary of State, I know him from my years in London politics, when he was commissioner of Transport for London. He is a very capable man, and I wish him well in his new role. The Secretary of State has informed the House of her intention to accept 89 recommendations of the independent review into HS2. I have not yet seen a copy of that report, which I believe is being released today. Although we will need to study those proposals carefully before confirming our support for them, I can assure the Secretary of State if they offer better value for taxpayers, we will back them. The Secretary of State has also raised very serious concerns that taxpayers may have been defrauded by subcontractors. I assure her that if that proves to be the case, I will share her anger, and will support whatever action is necessary to get to the bottom of those allegations. I would request that she keeps the House informed as the investigations by HS2 and His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs progress. Before I close, I would like to press the Secretary of State on a number of matters. In recent weeks the Government have announced several projects that either are funded by Network North or align with its commitments. However, we have yet to see a clear Government commitment to either fully support the Network North plan or scale it back. Can the Secretary of State now provide a definitive update on which elements will proceed and which will be abandoned? It has been reported that officials are considering a plan, backed by the Mayor of Greater Manchester, to build an “HS2-lite” track between Birmingham and Crewe. Will she confirm whether those reports are true? I will conclude by turning to the planning system more generally. The whole House will recall that HS2 grappled with legal challenges, High Court proceedings and judicial reviews, all of which added delay and cost. What assessment has the Secretary of State made of the extent to which legal challenges and judicial reviews delayed the delivery of HS2? How can future infrastructure projects be protected from excessive or politically motivated litigation, and does the Secretary of State believe that sufficient action has been taken to prevent some of the more spurious concerns about such things as bats and newts obstructing future vital infrastructure projects?

• 11 Jun 2025 · Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill · Hansard source

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  Let me begin by setting out an unambiguous truth: aviation is vital to the British economy. It is a cornerstone of our national infrastructure, our competitiveness and our connectivity. When it comes to the impact of aviation on our economy, the figures speak for themselves. Aviation contributes £52 billion to UK GDP, supporting over 960,000 jobs across the country. That includes 341,000 people working directly in aviation—from air traffic controllers to aerospace engineers—350,000 jobs in the supply chain, and another 269,000 supported through consumer spending. Aviation also delivers nearly £8.7 billion in tax revenues, and aerospace manufacturing adds a further £9 billion directly to GDP, plus over £10 billion more when including its supply chains. Some 197 million passengers and 2 million tonnes of freight move through our airports each year. The economic case is therefore unanswerable. In short, we must all support this thriving industry with clear benefits to the country. The Conservative party has always recognised the strategic importance of aviation, but, unlike the current Government, we understand the damage that can be done with poor policy choices—I regret to say that we have seen plenty of that from the Labour Government over the past year. Alongside their national insurance jobs tax, which is putting pressure on businesses and threatens to leave working people £3,500 a year worse off, Labour’s decision to hike air passenger duty threatens the vitality of this thriving industry. The Office for Budget Responsibility confirms that rises planned by the Chancellor of the Exchequer will raise an extra £555 million in taxes over five years, pushing up the costs for businesses and passengers alike. In a speech that will have a lot of common ground with the Secretary of State’s speech, I regret to say that Labour’s handling of its professed desire to expand aviation raises more questions than answers. The decision to approve a second terminal at Luton airport, which we support, will be judicially reviewed. The proposal for a second runway at Gatwick has been kicked down the road for surprising reasons, to say the least, and the supposed support for a third runway at Heathrow is no more credible. The Chancellor has promised that the latter proposal will be operational by 2035, with spades in the ground in this Parliament, but that ambition looks very far-fetched, and there are substantial logistical and financial barriers to its construction. So far, the Government have provided no solutions on those points, so we will watch developments in the next few weeks with considerable interest. It is against that backdrop that we come to the Bill before us. When we entered opposition, we made it clear that we would not oppose the Government just for the sake of it. We made it clear that where the Government’s choices would benefit the country or the economy, we would welcome them. That is why we will not seek to divide the House on this legislation on Second Reading. This Bill is a logical follow-on from the statutory instrument passed in September last year that established the SAF mandate, the first stage of which came into effect in January. Having mandated that airlines will be required to use a specified percentage of SAF—2% this year, rising to 10% in 2030 and 22% in 2040—it is logical to take steps to ensure adequate levels of locally produced fuel. While the mandate requires the consumption of SAF, it is a new technology, and its production carries a high risk for investors. Encouraging the development of the plants required to produce this fuel is the purpose of this Bill and, to a very large degree, it is a continuation of the policy of the previous Government. In 2023, it was the last Government who committed to an industry-funded revenue certainty mechanism to support UK-based SAF production. In early 2024 we published the detail, with plans for a guaranteed strike price model to give price certainty to SAF producers. I hear the Minister say, “You didn’t do it!” He is completely correct, because unfortunately there was something called a general election that followed shortly after. As the Secretary of State has outlined, under this model, producers will be topped up when the market price falls below a guaranteed strike price; when the market price rises above, they will pay it back. The system mirrors the successful contracts for difference model in offshore wind, and the economic benefits could be considerable. A cost-benefit analysis produced by the Department for Transport before the general election suggested that the SAF industry could add more than £1.8 billion to the economy and create more than 10,000 jobs in the country, but, more fundamentally, SAF is a product of what we know to work. As the Secretary of State said in her speech, it can be blended with conventional Jet A-1, used in existing aircraft and refuelled at existing airports. The capability exists. The challenge is not scientific; it is economic. That is why the concept of a revenue certainty mechanism was one of the six pillars in the previous Government’s jet zero strategy, and, as the Secretary of State outlined, the introduction of a revenue certainty mechanism has wide support in the aviation industry. Let me be clear: while we will not oppose the legislation this evening, we will carefully scrutinise it as it progresses through the House. In that spirit, I will put some questions to the Minister, which I hope he will address in his summing up. The first is about passengers. In the press release announcing the Bill, the Government said that the revenue certainty mechanism would keep ticket price changes minimal: “Keeping fluctuations to £1.50 a year on average.” The Secretary of State said the same in her speech. Perhaps in his speech the Minister could outline what this figure is based on. Do the Government stand by it? Is it a commitment, or a rough estimate? The second question is about what type of SAF the Government favour and how it will be produced. While the SAF mandate permits the production and use of hydroprocessed esters and fatty acids SAF in the early years of the mandate, and also contains a small but increasing requirement for power-to-liquid SAF in later years, the bulk of the SAF to be developed and used under the terms of the mandate is second generation SAF, which is to be made from municipal waste, non-edible crops and woody biomass. The UK is a small island, with insufficient spare land to enjoy self-sufficient food security or to grow new forests at scale. Does the Minister think we will be self-sufficient? If not, what proportion of the ingredients necessary for making second generation SAF does the Minister think we will need to import? Relatedly, the HEFA cap comes into force incrementally from 2027, despite there currently being no domestic production of second generation SAF in the UK and low levels of second generation SAF produced globally, removing the opportunity to source mandated volumes through imports. This risks making the costs of hitting SAF mandate targets very high indeed, because suppliers will soon be forced to buy out of their mandate obligations—a significant cost that will be passed on to the airlines and, ultimately, to passengers without delivering any decarbonisation benefit at all. Will the Government consider revising the timelines for phasing out HEFA SAF to bring them more in line with the timescales for domestic second generation SAF production, in order to minimise the costs for passengers? The next area of interest is planning. The plants in which the Government are seeking to encourage investment will be large, and—as the Minister no doubt knows—large developments tend to attract a lot of local opposition, often leading to planning inquiries, judicial reviews, vast expense and years of delay before any construction work begins. If this does not change, the revenue certainty mechanism may not be sufficient to attract investors, so what will the Government do to minimise delays in the planning process? I turn now to timescales. When will the first contracts be awarded under the RCM? Will there be a timetable for reaching full mandate compliance? As my right hon. Friend the Member for Goole and Pocklington (David Davis)—who is no longer in his place—touched on, the issue of the strike price is critical to the success of the proposal. What criteria will be used to set the strike price? Will the methodology be published, and will there be regular reviews? Finally, will the Government commit to regular reporting to Parliament on industry take-up, production capacity and cost trajectory, to ensure that they remain accountable for the Bill over time? The importance of this Bill is clear. Backing UK production of sustainable aviation fuel is necessary if we are to meet our net zero goals without undermining the competitiveness of the aviation sector. However, let me be clear: as the Bill moves through the House, we will continue to look closely at the detail and press for changes where necessary, where improvements can be made to ensure that the scheme delivers on its promise.

• 2 Jun 2025 · Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  It is because there is no Division later. It is not because nobody cares, but because there is not going to be a Division. The previous Conservative Government recognised just how vital local bus services are to keeping communities connected. From 2020 to when we left office last summer, the previous Government committed £4.5 billion to support and enhance bus services, including more than £2 billion to help local authorities implement their bus service improvement plans. Perhaps most importantly, we also introduced the £2 bus fare cap.

• 2 Jun 2025 · Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  The risk of the Bill is that it does not come with substantial funding attached. That is the problem. It is mismanaging the public’s expectations. I expect we will hear from a parade of Labour MPs talking about how it will transform services in their local area. Without the required level of funding, it simply will not.

• 2 Jun 2025 · Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  Yes, my hon. Friend is completely correct, and I will come to that a bit later in my speech. While we do not oppose the franchising of bus services, we do oppose a particular assumption that underlines this legislation, which is that the public sector is the solution to everything. Some local authorities may have the expertise and resources to successfully franchise passenger bus services, but let us be clear that many do not. The very central premise of the Bill—giving every local authority the unchecked power to implement franchising, regardless of its resources or capacity—is not an act of empowerment; it is irresponsible. By removing the need for the Secretary of State to consent to franchising, as required under the previous Conservative Government, this Government are eliminating crucial safeguards.

• 2 Jun 2025 · Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  With respect to my right hon. Friend, I will not, because I am conscious that lots of Members want to speak. Those safeguards are designed to ensure that franchising serves the passengers who rely on our bus services and the taxpayers who pay for them. The expertise required to design, manage and operate franchised networks is not readily available in most councils. That is why the Bus Services Act 2017 limited franchising powers to mayoral combined authorities, which are bodies with the scale, resources and democratic mandate to take on such responsibilities. Crucially, the legislation we enacted to pave the way for mayoral combined authorities to issue franchising models also required those authorities to demonstrate that franchising would deliver genuine benefits for passengers. The removal of that requirement by this Bill is concerning, and it betrays the view held by those on the Government side of the House that the public sector is inherently infallible. Members will not be shocked that I do not share that view, but they do not need to take my word for it.

• 2 Jun 2025 · Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  I will make a bit of progress. However, the Bill in its original form does not do that. The Secretary of State has acknowledged, and I agree, that the Bill does not mandate franchising everywhere, and that is a sensible step, but the Bill does not prioritise passengers, and nothing in it guarantees an improvement in service standards. The truth is that this Bill appears to be driven by political nostalgia. It is in many ways a thinly veiled attempt to recreate the municipal model of the pre-1986 era, without fully considering the financial and operational realities of today.

• 2 Jun 2025 · Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  It is a little bit early, but I will give way.

• 2 Jun 2025 · Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  I will make some progress and then give way. Members should take the word of Centre for Cities, which has made it clear that expanding franchising could expose councils to serious financial risks, because after decades of deregulated services, many transport authorities simply lack the skills and capacity to manage a comprehensive bus network, yet would be financially responsible if an undertaking goes wrong. These are not just hypothetical concerns. The experience in Greater Manchester illustrates just how easily costs can spiral, leaving the taxpayer out of pocket. The Secretary of State will no doubt be aware that initial projections published in Greater Manchester combined authority’s transport revenue budget put the cost of transitioning to a franchised system at £134.5 million for 2024-25. That figure has since ballooned, with ongoing operational costs now forecast to exceed £226 million per year by 2025-26, which is a 68% increase in one year. Over four years, the scheme could cost up to £1 billion—far, far more than anticipated. Moreover, the House will know that the annual level of bus subsidy in London last year amounted to £646 million. Greater London is the most heavily populated and most economically active area in the entire country. It also has the highest level of bus use. Yet even with all those advantages, it requires that level of annual subsidy just to keep the network running.