Ruth Cadbury MP: speeches

Speeches

• 11 Sept 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I, too, look forward to working with the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Selby (Keir Mather), in his new role. Last week, the Transport Committee heard that car clubs, peer-to-peer ride-sharing and car-sharing schemes align with Government objectives on transport integration, reducing congestion, increasing electric vehicle use and supporting residents in rural areas where public transport is poor. Unlike France and other countries, the sector in the UK operates in a policy vacuum, particularly since the Government withdrew the car clubs toolkit guidance in May. Is the Minister planning to address that policy vacuum?

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

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  I thank the hon. Member for her intervention, which goes to the heart of what I am saying: it is not for this Bill and this Government to define whether or not colleges, schools and so forth should be included—one would hope they would be—but it is for the local authority to define their socially necessary services according to the needs in their area. They should publish it, and a requirement to do so should be in the Bill. I am pretty sure that the Minister will say, “Don’t worry, Chair of the Select Committee, it’ll be in the guidance.” My concern is that guidance is to some extent discretionary and can be changed over time. I, Alex Mayer and others would like to see the need to have a definition and methodology for socially necessary services stated in the Bill.

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

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  I speak in the context of devolution within an overarching set of values. I will not go into the specifics of what level a bus fare should be, but the overall ridership and the sustainability of the bus system are a key objective. I know the Minister will say that with devolution, how that happens is up to the local transport authorities. Returning to the evidence we heard in Committee, as everybody here knows, buses remain the most used form of public transport, yet the number of bus journeys in England outside London has dropped from 4.6 billion in 2009 to 3.6 billion in 2024. Alongside the declining number of journeys, the need to improve services and increase ridership speaks to the evidence received by the Committee about the impact on social isolation of a lack of access to buses. Transport for the North told the Committee that in 2024 some 11.4 million people across England faced transport-related social exclusion, and there was evidence that the problem was worse in towns than in cities. The Minister told us that the Government intended the Bill to deliver services that were more affordable and reliable, faster and better integrated. However, when pressed on whether people in England would see more buses to more places by the end of this Parliament, he said that that is certainly their intention and they are doing everything possible to make it happen. My contention is that without that being baked into the body of the Bill, there is a risk that in many places there could be a continued decline in bus services over time. Amendment 66 to clause 14 relates to socially necessary services. It seeks to insert in line 5 of page 10 after the word “services”: “along with a description of the criteria or methodology used to determine which services are considered socially necessary”. It would be for the local transport authority to define that, but in a publicly visible way. The amendment asks that local authorities be required to produce a transparent methodology for how they determine these socially necessary services. The North West Surrey Bus Users Group made the argument to the Committee that a clear and consistently applied definition was essential for holding local authorities accountable for maintaining basic service levels on loss-making routes. It warned that in the absence of sufficient guidance to date, some authorities had, to a greater or lesser extent, abdicated their responsibilities. As a result of such evidence, the Committee’s report recommended that the Department should mandate local transport authorities to publish their own transparent methodology for how they determine which bus services qualify as socially necessary to ensure public accountability—hence the reason for this amendment.

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

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  I have only been here 10 and a bit years; I will get used to it. I was referring to my hon. Friend the Member for Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard. I apologise to the House and to you, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Bill as currently drafted suggests that local transport authorities merely define their socially necessary services. That could mean services as they are now; it does not take into account changes in need. New housing developments might mean that a loss-making route becomes commercially viable. The closure of a major employer might mean that nearby housing loses a viable bus service. The Bill allows for change, but it should require local authorities to have a publicly available methodology, on which user groups, communities and residents can hold their local transport authority to account.

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

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  You are absolutely right, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will not repeat what I said on Second Reading, except to say it is no surprise that our first stand-alone inquiry in the Transport Committee was on buses in England outside of London. That issue affects Members in England from across the House and from all sorts of constituencies. I speak in support of two amendments that stand in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard (Alex Mayer), myself and others: amendment 66 and new clause 46. Since Second Reading of the Bus Services (No. 2) Bill, the Transport Committee has published its “Buses connecting communities” report, which focuses on potential solutions to the long-term decline in bus ridership in England outside London. If the Government seek the reversal of bus decline in England, I hope the Minister will support our two amendments. They add to the Bill, because they specifically seek to improve bus services in a way that relying on future guidance may not. They provide the context in which local transport authorities can determine their specific bus provision. Merely devolving greater control to local authorities without any kind of overarching values-based vision will not help in areas that have no interest whatsoever in enhancing and extending their services, and could risk simply entrenching inequality and decline. New clause 46 seeks to ensure that local transport authorities have a duty to consider funding for service enhancements. It is about “whether, when and how to use appropriate public funding to improve existing local bus services.” The local transport authority must have regard to six principles. These are the potential for increased ridership; the overall sustainability of the network; the service improvements, particularly the frequency of existing services; extending operating hours; improving the reliability of services or their integration with other modes of transport; and extending the routes of local services. We know that progressive local authorities are committed to enhancing and expanding the public transport in their areas, and they do that; we have great examples under Labour mayors in Greater Manchester, South Yorkshire and the west midlands. Having more people on more buses addresses the policy objectives that they and we in Labour seek to achieve, such as addressing congestion, air pollution, carbon emissions, social and economic isolation, and growth. However, I fear that there are—and that there could be more—local authorities that care little for those important objectives, which are central to this Government’s values. New clause 46 would therefore bake in a duty on local transport authorities to consider using appropriate funds to improve bus services where it would “grow ridership or improve the sustainability of the overall network”. It sets out specific factors to be taken into account when making such decisions. It would also enable bus user groups and others to measure the intentions of their local transport authorities against those basic objectives. New clause 46 comes from the Transport Committee’s recommendation 117, which says that the Department should “require local transport authorities to consider using grant or fare box funding to enhance existing local bus services.” The need to improve local bus services while growing ridership was a focal point of the evidence received by our Committee.

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

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  The hon. Member is entirely correct. Our amendments would support local transport authorities to grow their local bus networks actively in response to demographic and economic changes, not just to manage the decline. Without the amendments, particularly amendment 66, the only requirement is for authorities to list their current services. While acknowledging the Government’s rightful drive on devolution, our Committee would not want any local transport authority to walk away from the Bill’s important objectives to promote growth, particularly in towns across England; to promote reliability and integration; and to address social isolation, inequality, traffic congestion and pollution.

• 8 Sept 2025 · Indefinite Leave to Remain · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for his speech, and I thank those who secured the debate. Many of my constituents are highly skilled. They often work in IT. Some do not intend to stay and may well go home, but those who have written to me have told me what it means for them. It is not just about their current job; they see themselves contributing in the long term through their skilled jobs and perhaps making a career, climbing up the career ladder and becoming managers and leaders in their field. This decision appears to make that possibility very uncertain. How do HR managers feel about this decision when they are recruiting skilled people from overseas?

• 4 Sept 2025 · Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund · Hansard source

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  Is my hon. Friend as concerned as I am that we are hearing that some adopters, or potential adopters, are being put off going even through the process because of concerns about a lack of post-adoption support, which of course has to be long term, as he just mentioned?

• 4 Sept 2025 · Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Alison Bennett) on securing this debate. I have seen the difference that the adoption and support grant has made locally. I visited the Purple Elephant Project, based in Whitton in my constituency, which supports over 100 children and families in Hounslow and Richmond, including many who have been adopted, are in kinship care or are currently looked-after children in foster care. It provides intense professional therapeutic support. The Purple Elephant team gave examples of the difference it has made, sometimes after a long period of therapeutic support, to benefit those children and families. I saw the safe and welcoming space it provides and understood the difference it makes. The children it has supported have all had a traumatic start to their life through neglect or abuse, and they have great difficulty building relationships and coping with school, siblings and any social situation. Due to the close correlation between neglect, abuse and adoption, Purple Elephant and other organisations are heavily dependent on the grant for their sustainability. When I met our kinship care group, I heard that many of them, and the children for whom they are now guardians, gain from the services that the fund supports. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Janet Daby) cares deeply about this issue and is personally committed, but I ask her to address the problems. Purple Elephant told me recently that it is not out of the woods yet. It is still being impacted significantly and having to fundraise to bridge the gap in funding and ensure that therapy sessions do not stop. Let us remember that it is not just the children and families who lose out because of the uncertainty and the cuts resulting from these decisions, but the therapists themselves, who have a living to make. Most of them are freelancers. They want to work with these damaged children and do not want their whole practice to be paid for privately by families who can afford it. There must be equality here. Purple Elephant has told me that families are anxious, stressed and disillusioned about the loss of support and worried about how they will cope if these services—

• 3 Sept 2025 · Pavement Parking · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Hobhouse. I thank the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire) for securing this debate. She and many other hon. Members have described the reasons for this debate and for a change in the law. As Chair of the Transport Committee, it gives me great pleasure to speak in this debate, but I am not sure how many times in the 10 years since I have been in Parliament I have spoken on the issue of bringing in a default ban on pavement parking. As a London MP, and before that a London councillor and a London resident for 40 years, I know that a default ban—with specific exemptions where needed—would work. I have never understood the apparent reluctance among some to allow that nationwide. I was an active member of the Select Committee inquiry, along with the Minister, who was then the Committee Chair; the rural affairs Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner); and the then Conservative Member for Bexhill and Battle, who took us to his constituency to show us the problems there. We recommended Government legislation for a nationwide ban on pavement parking across England outside London to give the Secretary of State for Transport the power to bring in secondary legislation. We also recommended a ban enforced by local authorities, not the police; a nationwide awareness campaign showing the problems of pavement parking for those affected; and revisions of the traffic regulation order process. The Secretary of State has shown that she and the Minister are passionate—

• 1 Sept 2025 · Borders and Asylum · Hansard source

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  My constituency, like Britain as a whole, has long been home to people of all faiths and cultures who came here or whose forebears came here from all around the world. Over the summer, we have seen the growth of ugly rhetoric, including the term “indigenous Britons”, which risks a culture of fear in many of our communities. What are the Government doing to address this insidious trend?

• 21 Jul 2025 · Middle East · Hansard source

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  Does the Foreign Secretary accept that Israel’s plans to transfer control of the Ibrahimi mosque from the Palestinian municipality of Hebron is highly inflammatory and a violation of international law? Will the Government condemn any transfer of authority away from Palestinians and consider sanctions against the Kiryat Arba settlement municipality if it assumes such a role?

• 14 Jul 2025 · State of Climate and Nature · Hansard source

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  I very much welcome the Energy Secretary’s statement. Adequate electric vehicle charging infrastructure, depot charging and onshore power for shipping are all critical to the Government’s net zero challenge, and businesses and providers across the transport sector who are making investment decisions need a route map. What steps is he taking to prioritise grid connections? Will he commit to reforming the grid queuing system, so that projects that are essential to decarbonising our transport sector are brought forward more quickly?

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

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  I welcome the statement, and I am sure that the Roads Minister will ensure that the various road projects deliver for local residents walking along and across the new junctions, and benefit them as much as they benefit drivers. The strategic road network projects are clearly important to dealing with congestion, but can I assume that each one has been subject to robust appraisal and business case development, and may I ask when we will see the equivalent work being done to address the chronic capacity crisis on the west coast main line?