Olly Glover MP: speeches 2024

Speeches

• 11 Sept 2024 · Oswestry to Gobowen Railway Line · Hansard source

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  Does my hon. Friend agree that many railway reopenings in the last 20 years have seen significantly higher use than expected? They include the Ebbw Vale line, which achieved year four ridership by the end of year one, Larkhall in Scotland, where demand was 26% higher than forecast, and the Borders railway, which saw a doubling of demand in the first month, compared with plan, and extra coaches and car parking needed.

• 11 Sept 2024 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q15. Oxfordshire has seen a huge amount of population growth in recent years, without the infrastructure to match. A new railway station on the great western main line between Didcot and Swindon at Grove and Wantage would help to reduce traffic and improve access to both Oxford and London. Does the Prime Minister support investment in our railways, and will he meet me to hear the case for a new railway station at Grove and Wantage?

• 5 Sept 2024 · Waste Crime: Staffordshire · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee) on organising the debate. It is an important topic, and I commend the research he has put into his speech, illuminating the scale of the problem. Thirty-four million tonnes, or 18%, of waste being illegally disposed of and £1 billion in costs, with a 55% increase since 2019, shows what a significant problem this is, and it is important that we work collaboratively to tackle it. The hon. Member also showed the passion that his community has for dealing with waste while working collaboratively. It has been good to hear praise for predecessor MPs of other parties, from him and from the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell), which again shows the value of working cross-party on this topic. Some key themes have emerged from the debate. We have heard about the impact on the environment and nature, especially from lithium dumping in landfill sites, with the consequent risk of fire. Indeed, it is not just a risk: fires of a significant nature have been highlighted in a number of contexts. There is also a health impact on local residents, who are affected by the facilities near residential areas. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Dr Gardner) rightly highlighted the benefits and importance of having a healthy workforce, so that our economy can grow and productivity can be improved. Various speakers have highlighted the economic impact of the problem and the issues in various constituencies, including a lack of land available for development because previous waste facilities have not been cleared up. The workforce productivity challenge was also mentioned. We heard of the importance of cross-party and cross-agency working to tackle waste in Staffordshire and nationally, and many agencies have been cited. Local authorities clearly have a role, as do the police. A number of Members mentioned the importance of strengthening the Environment Agency’s resources, powers and ability to enforce. Many businesses are affected. Within my constituency in Oxfordshire, a landfill operator has been causing problems similar to those discussed, including by producing significant odours and not always being as transparent and proactive in its engagement and communication with local communities as we might wish. A key outcome of this debate will, I hope, be recognition of the importance of tackling the root causes of the waste problem that we face. Our recycling rates in the United Kingdom remain lower than those of comparable European countries, although they have been improving. The more we can all do to help businesses and households to tackle those root causes, the more it will reduce the need for some of these waste facilities.

• 5 Sept 2024 · Waste Crime: Staffordshire · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for that; it is very good to hear of Welsh good practice in reducing waste demand. It is clearly important that we work to create an economy in which we envisage the whole life cycle of products and produce, including how they will be disposed of effectively and in an environmentally friendly manner. We have also heard of the impact that waste facilities have on house prices within Staffordshire and how that affects people’s ability to move. The debate has been helpful in highlighting some of these wider impacts and challenges. This is not just about fly-tipping or local nuisance; it has real consequences for people’s lives. We heard very useful comments from the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North about how some operators of these facilities are sometimes inclined to misattribute the cause of odours, trying to blame them on things such as sewage. That is why it is important to have engagement with and listen to local residents. The Environment Agency must have the resources to collate that data and intelligence, so that the problems can be properly mapped and anticipated and interventions can be made. In conclusion, today’s debate has been useful for highlighting the problems of waste management within Staffordshire, but it has also highlighted how these themes are relevant across the country. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s thoughts and remarks on how the new Government will attempt to tackle these problems.

• 3 Sept 2024 · Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is absolutely correct, and I am sorry I omitted to do that earlier. The passion expressed by the hon. Member for Thurrock and her tribute to her constituency were very clear, and it was touching and moving to hear about her child and her family. I know that she will be a great champion for special educational needs and disabilities provision. Let me end by saying that I hope the Government will extend their passion for public ownership to the investment in rail infrastructure that we in Oxfordshire need, and from which, as many other Members have said, the rest of the country will benefit.

• 3 Sept 2024 · Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill · Hansard source

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  I speak in support of amendment 20, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse), which would create an independent body to ensure that scrutiny and transparency are at the heart of the public service train operating contracts the Government propose to award. With the end of competitive tendering of franchise contracts, which historically, despite their flaws, have contributed to some improvements to cost control and passenger growth, it will at least ensure that quality and accountability are present in the process, and will be important. I welcome the Government’s desire to improve our railways, but it is important that there is accountability and to remember that public ownership and direction have historically caused problems as well as improvements. Although the majority of current train operating contracts are in the private sector, since the pandemic they have been subject to even more significant direction and sometimes micromanagement by the Government than before. My journey into London today shows how the public versus private debate is not all that is needed to improve our railway. At Didcot Parkway this morning, only one out of three ticket offices was working and two out of four ticket windows were closed. That led me to miss train number one as a result of private sector problems, and I was prevented from catching the next couple of trains as a result of public sector problems, namely Network Rail signalling problems. Again, the ideology is less important than the delivery.

• 29 Jul 2024 · Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill · Hansard source

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  I congratulate you on your election to the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker. I also congratulate the Secretary of State for Transport and her colleagues on their appointments, and I wish them all the best. I will start by giving the House a commitment that I will not make any laboured or tedious comments about curly British Rail sandwiches. I welcome the fact that the new Government are giving legislative time to transport at this early stage, given that it is a vital policy area that is often neglected—some might even consider it a Cinderella topic for this House. It is a positive contrast to the previous Conservative Government, who presided over industrial relations chaos, utterly incomprehensible contract extensions for failing train operators such as Avanti West Coast—which many Members have been plagued by—and CrossCountry, and a lack of any meaningful fares or industry reform. I am one of few Members of this House to arrive here following a career on the railways. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Smethwick (Gurinder Josan), and I commend him for his excellent speech praising the diversity of his seat. I have had the privilege of visiting Soho train maintenance depot during my career on the railways in the west midlands. I would like to give some insights from my professional experience working both for state-owned Network Rail and private sector train operating companies. It is important for everyone in this debate to remember that nearly all the infrastructure and the operation of a third of all daily train services are already publicly owned. The previous Labour Government rightly took action following the safety and financial failures of private sector Railtrack by creating Network Rail in 2002, which was quickly able to tackle safety and performance issues. However, my experience of two stints working at Network Rail for a total of 10 years is that, as a very large, publicly owned organisation, at times, silo working and bureaucracy can be barriers to achieving results. Some of the issues facing Network Rail either in or near my constituency include infrastructure reliability problems on the great western main line, severely overrunning engineering works affecting the Botley Road and many local residents in Oxford, and a very long construction processing for Reading Green Park station. It is important to note that being in the public sector does not inherently make everything better. In the privatised train operating companies that I worked for, some of the main barriers to progress were the result not so much of them being private sector, but the lack of incentive to invest due to short franchise or contract terms, and micromanagement by the Department for Transport and the Treasury. In September 2013, I joined London Midland—a train operator that notionally was in the last year of its franchise. That meant that key investment decisions were deferred, such as on-train wi-fi, timetable improvements and car park enhancements. It felt as if I was caught in a “Star Trek”-style temporal paradox, since when I left London Midland in May 2017 it was still in the last year of its franchise, as no decisions had been made about the franchising process. That is an example of how the potential private sector benefit to the railway has often not been realised because of the flawed approach to franchising, rather than the nature of the private sector. There are examples of positive private sector contributions, perhaps the most significant of which is the benefit of Chiltern Railways’ 20-year franchise, which saw investment in new stations at Warwick Parkway and the Evergreen upgrade of the Chiltern main line, both of which delivered significant passenger benefits and were genuinely heavily funded by the private sector. Had we had more long-term franchises like that, things might be very different today. The Bill will not tackle the issue of trains being owned privately and leased back, often increasing the whole cost to operators. The current leasing arrangements can also create perverse incentives on rolling stock retention as a result of cliff edges imposed by lease durations and renewal dates. This has created shortages of capacity on a number of parts of the network in recent years, as short-term financial decisions have been taken to avoid rolling stock lease extensions—for example, on Southern with class 455 trains and Great Northern with class 365 trains. Government plans to leave freight and open access operators in private hands may indicate inconsistency with the view that the private sector cannot deliver good services. Most seriously, the state versus private sector debate does nothing to tackle the lack of clear vision for what the Government want the railway to achieve or deliver. As other Members have said, fares continue to be complicated and often expensive. There is a lack of integrated timetables within the railway and with other transport modes, and the role of the Office of Rail and Road regulator needs examination. I am therefore pleased that the new Government have further plans that I hope will address those points. I implore them to move beyond the public versus private debate and focus on what current and prospective rail users need. Doing so will be crucial to achieving a real focus on customer service, which is needed to grow patronage and achieve modal shift, so that the railway can thrive as part of a wider, sustainable and efficient transport system.

• 22 Jul 2024 · Economy, Welfare and Public Services · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to give my maiden speech today. I aspire to match the eloquence of the previous speakers in this debate, including the hon. Member for South Antrim (Robin Swann), who gave the most recent maiden speech; his passion for his constituency is very clear. I start by paying tribute to my immediate predecessor, David Johnston. I admire the fact that Mr Johnston entered politics because of his passion for social mobility. I have met constituents who have been personally helped by him, and I aspire to follow his lead. I was pleased that the first email in my parliamentary mailbox came from Lord Ed Vaizey of Didcot, Member for the predecessor seat of Wantage between 2005 and 2019, offering his congratulations. That was a warm and encouraging gesture. I arrive in Parliament following a career on the railway, serving the public, and I hope to apply my knowledge and experience to working with others to advance both rail infrastructure and public services in my seat. The name of the new Didcot and Wantage constituency is an improvement on the previous name, Wantage, but remains imperfect. While Wantage and Didcot are the larger towns of the three in the seat, residents from Wallingford are aggrieved by their omission. Mr Deputy Speaker, I can assure you and this House that all three towns will have my attention and care. The same applies to the dozens of villages in the seat; I am fortunate enough to live in one of them, Milton. All our villages have a unique character and set of attractions. Pendon museum in Long Wittenham includes an homage in model railway form to the 1930s Vale of White Horse landscape, and there is also the ancient Uffington white horse and the beautiful chalk streams of the Letcombes. The constituency’s economy is diverse: we have the technology and science centres of Milton Park, Harwell campus and Culham near to farms that have been passed down through generations. Didcot hosts many industrial and business units, and residents benefit from the great western main line for fast commuting to and from London. Organisations such as Didcot TRAIN, the DAMASCUS youth project and Sustainable Wantage illustrate the strong culture of public service and volunteering. My constituents rightly have high expectations. During the election campaign, one of them highlighted the lack of biographical detail in a leaflet about me, and asked me whether I was a doctor, a surveyor, a banker, a teacher, or an alien from outer space. Despite my love of the voyages of the crew of the USS Enterprise, Mr Deputy Speaker, I can reassure you and everyone in this House that I am not an alien. Of course, my constituency contains many non-humans, albeit perhaps not aliens. Many a local party volunteer has come to tire of my frequent canvassing of cats as well as humans. On occasion, this has helped my cause: while I was in conversation with one voter, his cat, Matthew, intervened. Matthew took a strong liking to me, with a great deal of leg-rubbing, even sitting on my lap on the pavement. The voter, astonished, told me that Matthew hates nearly everyone, and that his favourable verdict on me would be taken into account. Turning to the subject of today’s debate, my constituency shares many of the same challenges as the wider country. Access to GP appointments is often difficult, particularly in Didcot, which continues to yearn for a new GP surgery in Great Western Park. NHS dentistry barely exists, and sewage dumping in our waterways is a great concern, as are proposals for a large reservoir near Steventon and the Hanneys. Many residents desire to walk and cycle more, but need pleasant and safe routes and paths in order to do so, and while the constituency benefits from fast railway connections, the reliability and capacity of the service provided can be somewhat patchy, and we continue to lack a railway station serving Grove and Wantage. Perhaps the greatest issue on constituents’ minds is the cost of housing and recent, very substantial increases in the numbers of houses. I commend the Government on their commitment to genuinely affordable housing, but ask them to bear in mind that residents would be more supportive of housing growth were the health, education, and transport facilities needed to support it delivered in parallel. I promise to work tirelessly for my constituents in the pursuit of progress on these issues, and thank them again for the opportunity to serve. It is a genuine honour to be stood here, and I look forward to working with Members from across the House to achieve those aims.