Olly Glover MP: speeches

Speeches

• 15 Oct 2025 · Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill · Hansard source

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  This has been an informative debate on all the new clauses. From a procedural point of view, we are happy not to push new clause 1 to a Division.

• 15 Oct 2025 · Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend makes a good point about what the Climate Change Committee has said. That is why I hope the Government will consider these Liberal Democrat amendments, which are intended to strengthen the Bill, so that its provisions become reality this time, and contrast with the many missed targets in the past on sustainable aviation fuel. Making aviation genuinely sustainable will require the Government to go beyond securing investment in SAF, and to ensure that in the longer term, the SAF measures complement, rather than detract from, investment in zero-carbon flight technology. I hope that the House will support our amendments, so that our country makes a bigger and more rapid contribution to decarbonising aviation.

• 14 Oct 2025 · International Rail Services: Ashford · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. That was a time of very straitened Government finances, which is something the current Government, of her own party, also have to grapple with, and make unexpected and regrettable decisions—for example, significant national insurance contribution increases for employers. Both Ebbsfleet International and Ashford International brought benefits to Kent for many years, until 2020. The service was stopped by Eurostar for a range of reasons. Some are to do with Eurostar’s financial difficulties, as has been discussed, but there was also a lack of UK Conservative Government support for Eurostar, which was a choice, as well as Brexit. Both those things were major contributing factors. It is a matter of regret that, five years on, Eurostar still does not serve Kent. This is unhelpful for tourism and cultural links for Kent, and is a waste of the considerable station infrastructure on the London to the channel high-speed line, which was provided for that specific purpose. More than 81,000 people have signed a petition calling for restoration of the Kent station calls, and a report by the Good Growth Foundation, which has been cited by many hon. Members today, estimates that up to £534 million of benefits per year would result from the restoration of those station calls. This issue is not just about Ashford, as we have already discussed today. For the vast majority of people in Kent and indeed in East Sussex, it is easier to travel to Ebbsfleet or Ashford to change trains than it is to trek all the way into London, which often requires paying expensive peak fares, as some Members have already mentioned. Indeed, disquiet about this issue is widespread in the county of Kent. For many decades, we have been familiar with the phenomenon of “Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells”. My friend, who lives in Tunbridge Wells and who pretty much exclusively travels to Europe by train, is very much a modern-day manifestation of that phenomenon, because of this issue. As well as applying further pressure on Eurostar, I hope that the Minister will explore other ideas to realise the potential of the London Saint Pancras high-speed route to boost Kent’s economy. Those ideas could include a regular passenger train service not just to Lille, Brussels or Paris, but serving Calais-Fréthun, which would realise the potential of more closely linking the economies of Kent and northern France. In France, the high-speed line to Paris transformed Lille’s economy. Ashford and Kent are yet to benefit in the same way, not least because of some of the border challenges that exist and Eurostar’s decisions not to stop in Kent. However, this transformation can still happen. The Minister can help to restore an international rail service to Ashford by resolving the conundrum around depot capacity for international operators. Although we expect a ruling from the Office of Rail and Road towards the end of this month about who will be granted access to the Temple Mills depot in Stratford, modest state support or investment in a new and larger rolling stock depot somewhere else along the line, and there are plenty of brownfield sites along the line, would help to facilitate private sector investment and competition to Eurostar, which Eurostar’s decision not to service Ebbsfleet and Ashford shows is needed. I appreciate that the Minister may be somewhat disinclined to listen to me on the case for direct state investment. Perhaps, however, he will listen to the hon. Member for Ashford, which would also reflect the Government’s wider enthusiasm for state ownership of and investment in railways. The issue that we have been debating this morning is part of a wider story of under-utilisation of the channel tunnel and the accompanying high-speed line. The Liberal Democrats believe that more international rail services would have wider benefits, potentially including a reduction in the number of short-haul flights from Heathrow, which might even reduce the need for a third runway at Heathrow. I very much look forward to hearing the Minister’s comments.

• 14 Oct 2025 · International Rail Services: Ashford · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Desmond. I commend the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Helena Dollimore) for securing this important debate. She, along with nearly everybody in the room, rightly made clear the pride they take in Kent and East Sussex. She rightly highlighted the channel tunnel as an incredible civil engineering achievement—it has been deemed one of the great engineering wonders of the world—and she cited her childhood memories of the formerly direct trains to Disneyland. The hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Dr Mullan) provided some useful detail—which, I must admit, I was not aware of—on Eurostar’s debt refinancing and the progress it has made there. That is very important context, and may be a useful argument for questioning some of Eurostar’s current decisions. The hon. Member for Ashford (Sojan Joseph) rightly pointed out that it was previously possible to make day trips to Paris from both Kent and London; it is still possible from London, but from Kent it is much harder. It is interesting to hear that he would support direct Government intervention in international rail, which is something that I hope the Minister will elaborate on further. The hon. Member for East Thanet (Ms Billington) rightly said that Kent is so close and yet so far from continental Europe. She reminded us, helpfully, that while the south east of England is prosperous on average, it has great pockets of deprivation. The hon. Member for York Outer (Mr Charters) made an attempt, perhaps, to rival the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) in terms of interpreting the meaning of Kent. More seriously, he was right to point out that there is enormous potential for directly connecting other parts of the United Kingdom to France and beyond. Indeed, there were proposals to do exactly that in the 1990s and regional Eurostar trains were even built. Factors such as the rise of budget airlines and the ongoing challenge of needing to have border infrastructure at every station that such trains call at are some of the reasons why that did not happen. However, the hon. Member is right to say that the idea is still pertinent. Perhaps, had HS2 continued towards the north-west and the north-east, it might have been easier. The hon. Member for Dartford (Jim Dickson) rightly reminded us that Ebbsfleet has also been affected by this, with the lack of service at Ebbsfleet International. He reminded us that one of the ideas behind the channel tunnel rail link, HS1 or, as it is now called, London St Pancras Highspeed—who knows what it will be called next?—was not just to reduce journey times between London and Paris and Brussels and reduce congestion on the existing Kent network, but to provide significant economic benefits to the south-east, which are now compromised by the ongoing failure to call there. The hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) was right to highlight the unrealised potential of the channel tunnel and the fact that freight is also being neglected in terms of the original design intentions for the tunnel. The introduction of direct passenger rail services between the UK and France and Belgium, and now the Netherlands too, has brought many benefits. It has made rail dominant in those markets for modal share compared with air, reduced carbon emissions as a result, and brought the three capitals of London, Paris and Brussels closer together. It is a convenient option for many people.

• 14 Oct 2025 · International Rail Services: Ashford · Hansard source

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  Given what the hon. Gentleman says about the decision to sell off the stake in Eurostar, does he feel that his own party—now very much in government—should reverse it and directly invest in international rail services?

• 15 Sept 2025 · Draft Building Safety Levy (England) Regulations 2025 · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Desmond, and I welcome the Minister to her place. The Liberal Democrats do not intend to divide the Committee either. Along with the Opposition spokesperson, we welcome the seriousness with which the Government are taking the matter and their positive steps to deal with the fact that thousands of people in our country still live in buildings with dangerous cladding, getting on for 10 years after the terrible 2017 Grenfell tragedy. We are pleased that the Government have thought hard about exempting certain types of social and affordable housing, as well as hospices and care homes. We therefore support what is being proposed. We have a bit of concern about whether the proposed levy will provide sufficient funding for all the necessary remediation. We would welcome hearing a bit more from the Minister about the financial appraisal of how much money needs to be raised, whether that will be adequate and, if not, what other avenues are being looked at to ensure that we have all the funding we need to deal with these risks for ever more, so that we have no more Grenfells.

• 3 Sept 2025 · Pavement Parking · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Hobhouse. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire) for securing this important debate, which builds on some themes that were discussed in a Westminster Hall debate a few months ago on the subject of walking and cycling safely to school. I hope hon. Members will forgive me for not referencing all their contributions, given how many spoke, in the interests of speaking concisely so that we have plenty of time to hear from the Minister. My hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell was right to highlight the patchwork of inconsistent rules across the country. She and my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton) recognised that we need some flexibility in places where current street layouts are not compatible with the number and size of cars. If there is to be change, it is right that local authorities play a key role, and there needs to be dialogue to come up with the right solutions for those locations. It was great to hear from the hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Dr Arthur) about the benefits of the recent Scottish pavement parking ban. Many hon. Members talked of the major impact on people who use mobility aids, who are blocked on the pavement and unable to walk into the road—which is unsafe anyway—because dropped kerbs are blocked by parked cars. The hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) rightly highlighted that this issue is not just about pavements; it is also about cycle paths. I know that she, like me, is very keen on cycling, and will also have experienced many times the impact of supposed cycle lanes actually being car parking spaces. The hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Maya Ellis) was right to highlight that the solutions to this issue need to take account of the differences in rural areas. We must recognise the different character of places in our country. As hon. Members have said, cars parked on the pavement can stop people from being able to walk or wheel down the street. If we have to enter the road, that is a risk to our safety. Change requires legislation, and the English devolution Bill should be amended to provide powers that enable pavement parking to be tackled. As the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) referred to, with her frustration very clear, we are now approaching the five-year anniversary of the closure of the Government consultation on pavement parking in England. The Local Government Association has been calling for similar powers to those that exist in London for a long time. Local government should be given those powers, and we should recognise that councils and the people elected to serve on them know their areas best. More than 80% of local authorities have reported that pavement parking is a widespread problem in their area, but it is very important that we do not view this as a pedestrians or cyclists versus cars issue, because even that well-known anti-car organisation, the RAC, found that four in five drivers want the Government to take action. There are, however, differing views on how it should be done, with 42% of motorists supportive of an outright ban and 41% wanting to see councils given powers to ban the practice on specific roads. In my Oxfordshire constituency of Didcot and Wantage, there are many examples of similar challenges. Oxfordshire county council is proposing a school street in the area of south Didcot, in recognition of pavement parking issues in places such as Ridgeway Road, the Croft and Mereland Road. It was good to hear from my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Josh Babarinde) about the success of the school streets scheme in his constituency. We have Enterprise car and van rental, which, alas, still sometimes uses pavements as a repository for its vehicles between rentals. On Didcot Great Western Park, there are persistent problems with people parking on pavements, despite the prevalence of car parking spaces available. An example of a place where there needs to be nuance and dialogue is Charlton Road in Wantage, where the design of the road is such that pavement parking is customary. It is important to recognise that some places will need it. As many hon. Members have said, tackling it will be very important for encouraging more people to walk and cycle, including to and from school. Liberal Democrats are calling on the Government to make it easier for local authorities to use the traffic regulation order process, and to simplify that process so they can take action more quickly and robustly, and at lower cost. Clearly, more work is needed from the Government on that. It is also incumbent on us to use the roads with consideration for others, so it is regrettable that there is a need for legislation, rather than people just thinking hard about where they park their car. That also applies to people walking who are too busy on their phones and just step into the road and nearly get hit by a cyclist—and of course, there are many examples of cyclists not cycling considerately. We should all think of other people when we are using our roads and our streets, and need for the Government to support that is perhaps just a regrettable output of the fact that we are not doing it ourselves. From what I have heard from the Minister in a number of contexts, I genuinely believe that she would like to make progress on this issue. That is why I hope that she will give us an update today on what meaningful response will be given to the consultation, with specific timescales, so that our local authorities receive much-needed clarity about what is going to happen. We urge the Government to publish that outstanding summary of responses to the consultation, with a clear plan for how we are going to take the issue forward. I will end my remarks there, so that there is plenty of time for the Minister to respond.

• 3 Sept 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q11. On a recent visit to the UK Space Agency, based in my Oxfordshire constituency, I learned of the huge value created by our space sector, generating more than £7 for every £1 invested. Given the Government’s decision to scrap the UKSA as an executive agency, will the Prime Minister guarantee its international credibility, its operational independence and its budget? And will he visit Harwell Campus to hear what our brilliant space companies need from Government?

• 15 Jul 2025 · West Coast Main Line · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Murrison. I commend the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Connor Naismith) for securing the debate and for his wide-ranging introductory speech. The hon. Member told us that 70 million passengers a year and 40% of freight use the west coast main line, highlighting its criticality to our railway and transport system. He also highlighted the critical role that HS2 was planned to play in relieving the west coast main line, and he was correct to point out that the main purpose of HS2 was—and to some extent, still is—to relieve pressure on the west coast main line to enable us to make better use of it for local, regional and freight traffic. I will come back to that shortly. He was also right to highlight the need for remodelling at Crewe, because having flat junctions to the north and south of the station is a major bottleneck on the west coast main line. The hon. Member for Stockport (Navendu Mishra) used the debate, as many hon. Members have and as I will continue to do, as a cheaper alternative to therapy, having suffered at the hands of Avanti West Coast. He was right to highlight issues with Stockport station and with staff welfare. He was also correct to make the point that many of the challenges faced by Avanti in delivering a good service are not purely down to Avanti; it is a partnership with Network Rail. That is why the Government’s hopes and plans for bringing infrastructure and train operation closer together with Great British Railways are the right ones. When that eventually happens for inter-city operators, we hope it will lead to some improvement. The hon. Member for Warrington South (Sarah Hall) gave a very reasonable list of what she would like to see on her Avanti West Coast journeys: specifically, a seat, functioning air conditioning and catering on an inter-city train. She was right to highlight the need for reliability and capacity if we are to attract more people on to inter-city and other kinds of trains. The hon. Member for Blackpool South (Chris Webb) was right to highlight Blackpool’s history as a railway centre. He probably knows far better than I do that what used to be the main line into Blackpool was converted into a high-capacity road route into the centre of town. That is perhaps a symbol of some of the choices we have made as a country over the last few decades to favour road over rail—choices that, I think it is fair to say, we sometimes find ourselves regretting. The hon. Member for Mid Cheshire (Andrew Cooper) was quite right to highlight many issues with HS2, including the phase 2 route, and the criticality of that proposed route for enabling capacity improvements in the north-west. For those with an interest in the topic, the Transport Committee recently quizzed the new boss of HS2, Mark Wild, and the Rail Minister from the other place in great detail about the HS2 phase 2 route and some of the issues we have been exploring today. One critical point that the Rail Minister revealed at that session was that, when the previous Conservative Government decided to scrap HS2 phase 2 up to Manchester, leaders of the existing rail industry were informed only the previous day. They were not given any time to even come up with an outline of an alternative plan for how west coast main line capacity would be improved in the future, or how the west coast main line would be able to accommodate all the trains coming off near Stafford, rather than continuing on HS2. There is much to learn from that Select Committee session. The west coast main line is a railway that is close to my heart. I worked in rail, in many different roles, before coming to this place. In fact, my first job working in Network Rail was putting in place the December 2008 timetable, which, following an expensive and disruptive upgrade programme, led to significant journey time improvements and more frequent trains. However, we learned from that process that upgrading an existing railway only gets us so many benefits; it is not too long before that that capacity gets absorbed. That is why, even after that £13 billion programme, the case for HS2 had to be made. There is a long history of upgrades to the west coast main line. In recent times, it was electrified as far as Liverpool and Manchester in the 1960s and up to Glasgow in the 1970s and, more recently, tilting trains were introduced. We have seen progress, but we need a radical step change now. It is critical to many communities, as hon. Members have said. Because of inter-city traffic, so many commuter trains rely on it in the west midlands, the London and home counties area, and in the north-west, and it is critical for freight. A critical thing—including for some of my hon. Friends in this House—is the Caledonian Sleeper between London and Scotland, which is a popular and useful alternative to flying, and very time-efficient, as people can travel overnight on it. I also worked on the west coast main line in other capacities, managing signal boxes between Crewe and Runcorn, many of which are now gone as part of modernisation. On far too many night shifts on call, I ended up at the Warrington signalling centre, dealing with one disaster or another, and I have managed train drivers on the west coast main line. That railway is close to my heart; we must respect the history of it and invest in it for the future. Hon. Members have articulately explained the current challenges on the route in terms of performance, capacity—including limited capacity for freight growth—and poor journey times to non-London destinations. In terms of solutions, it is clear that a high-speed line is still needed in one form or another. HS2 in its current limited form just moves the problem to the north of Birmingham; it will worsen it along constrained sections near Stafford and north of Crewe—which are two-track sections—and exacerbate the existing key problem of the west coast main line, which is a combination of traffic running at speeds of 75 mph, 100 mph, 110 mph and 125 mph. Particularly on two-track sections, that is difficult to deal with. The Government have reiterated their commitment to signalling upgrades and other forms of upgrades north of Crewe over the next 15 years. That is welcome, but those upgrades are needed based on today’s traffic, and will potentially be made worse because of the HS2 situation. A real missed opportunity for increasing capacity on the west coast main line is the fact that few of our freight trains are hauled by electric locomotives. Data modelling of acceleration proves conclusively that electrically hauled freight trains accelerate far faster than diesel trains, and can be accommodated far more easily amidst faster inter-city traffic. I hope the Government will consider what can be done to encourage freight operators to use electric traction in the future. As hon. Members have noted, open access applications have been rejected. The Government—certainly in their communications with the Office of Rail and Road—have been rather ambivalent and ambiguous about their views on open access, but the lack of it means that we urgently need a solution to Avanti’s high fares, even advance purchase ones. There is a lack of choice on key sections of the route. Certainly between London and Birmingham and even London and Liverpool, there is the option of using slower but much cheaper London Northwestern Railway or West Midlands Railway services, but between London and Manchester and London and Warrington, Wigan and Preston, there is no realistic alternative. As I know from friends in the north-west, that sometimes leads them to drive, even to and from London. As I said, the west coast main line has been upgraded many times. Upgrading a heavily used railway has been likened to performing open-heart surgery on a patient without anaesthetic: it is always disruptive and expensive, and the benefits are not long-lasting. That was particularly the case during the 10-year west coast route modernisation between 1999 and 2008. Nobody said this during this debate, which is pleasing, but there are those who say we do not need high-speed rail because we can just upgrade our existing lines. Sadly, it is not as simple as that, because it is very difficult to upgrade those lines; it causes chaos and provides limited benefits. More widely, Liberal Democrats believe that everyone should have convenient, affordable options to get around. A safe, reliable transport system is vital for our economic prosperity in all parts of the country. Improving transport is essential to combat climate change and air pollution, and to provide access for jobs. It is the critical cultural change we need in this country. Public transport is not a nuisance; it is a critical enabler of social inclusion and economic progress. Some hon. Members highlighted the Conservatives’ poor record on public transport, which is true, but the UK’s attitude is a long-standing problem. High-speed rail got under way in France in the late 1970s, and in Germany in the late 1980s. Today even Morocco has more high-speed rail than the UK. Those are choices we have made; we have been making the wrong choices for a long time. Yes, we do need to sort out the mess of HS2 but it is still needed and we must get back to it. More widely, we need to freeze rail fares and simplify ticketing to ensure that regular users are paying fair and affordable prices and to entice more people to rail. We have big hopes that Great British Railways will do that. We need more electrification and a public body that joins up the industry from track to train, putting regular passengers first and bringing in wholesale reform of a broken fare system. Doing all those things would provide the opportunity to increase the number of passenger journeys and bolster freight, so that our railways can play an even more critical role in delivering an effective economy and tackling climate change.

• 14 Jul 2025 · Northern Ireland Veterans: Prosecution · Hansard source

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  I join the hon. Member in paying tribute to our armed forces. He has made some very good points, but does he not accept that the Act that he is defending, and that the Government are committed to repealing, has been opposed by all major political parties in Northern Ireland? Is it not important, when paying tribute to and protecting our armed forces, that the solution has the consent of the people and politicians of Northern Ireland?