Following today’s £2.1-billion levelling-up fund announcement, I would like to briefly update the House about its transport aspect. Through your decision making, Mr Speaker, you have allowed Members the opportunity to range more widely. I am sure that Ministers at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities are grateful to you for the opportunity they will have to be at the Dispatch Box later today.
Nearly £650 million will be spent across 26 projects to help to create a transport system that is modern, efficient, and accessible to everyone across four nations. As we touched on in earlier questions, that includes more than 15 new electric buses in the north-east and the new metro line in the heart of Cardiff which, as Members know from our earlier exchanges, I will visit later today. Today’s announcement is a vote of confidence in the entire United Kingdom. As the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) said, I hope that it is rightly welcomed by both sides of the House.
When there are delays at the port of Dover, whether due to weather, strikes or the French, the impact on local jobs, businesses and residents is absolutely enormous. I welcome the £45-million levelling-up fund investment in our local campaign to keep Dover clear. I thank my right hon. Friend for that. Will he join me in thanking the Conservative leaders of Kent County Council and Dover District Council, and the excellent leadership at the port of Dover?
I will give a pithy answer. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for all her campaigning work. Dover is a strategic port for the United Kingdom. This project will ensure that we can meet our requirements and keep that flow of trade and traffic going. I am pleased that we have been able to get that money to help the port of Dover.
T2. The Law Society of Scotland, the RMT and others have all expressed concerns about the Seafarers’ Wages Bill only covering services that dock in our port 120 times a year. That threshold is so high that several services will not be covered. Why will the Minister not listen to their concerns and reduce that threshold, thereby protecting more seafarers?
My understanding is that around 98% of services will be covered by the Bill, including the short straits services around which there have been concerns about P&O.
Ben Everitt (Milton Keynes North) (Con)
T3. Despite more than £2 billion of support for buses from the Government during the pandemic, my right hon. Friend will be aware that the well-used and popular route 41 has suffered a massive reduction of service across my constituency. The local authority was made aware of plans to reduce the service in May 2022. However, my constituents still do not have a replacement service and are unable to access healthcare, jobs and education. Will my right hon. Friend meet me urgently to work out what more we can do to encourage local authorities to keep those vital bus services going?
I am always delighted to meet my hon. Friend. He will be aware that under our bus service improvement plans we are ensuring that local authorities and transport providers work more closely together. We provided more than £2 billion during the pandemic, as he says. I would be delighted to meet him and his constituents on this matter.
T4. Cuts to local bus services have left some of the most deprived communities in my constituency, including the Beechwood and Noctorum estates, effectively cut off from the wider Wirral at evenings and weekends. Many constituents now find it almost impossible to reach Arrowe Park Hospital by public transport. Will the Minister commit to increasing funding for local transport authorities so they can guarantee that no one is left behind by cuts to local services? Will he commit to a review of the Bus Service Act 2017, to allow the creation of municipal bus services that serve the needs of local communities?
My understanding is that talks are already under way about a franchising service in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency. We have already provided an extra £60 million over these three months for the £2 maximum fare cap, which will particularly help low-paid working people who regularly use buses to get to work.
T5. The commitment in the Williams-Shapps plan to reform the structure of rail fares has particular resonance for commuters in Swindon, who have historically endured disproportionately high rail fares for journeys to London compared with those in Didcot, Bath and Bristol. Will my right hon. Friend assure me that, in any forthcoming legislation, those plans will be brought to fruition? Is the Treasury supportive of them?
I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend for his question, particularly his reference to our important plan for rail and the necessary reform. As I said, I will set out those plans in more detail shortly, but he should be reassured that we want to simplify the current complicated ticketing strategy while protecting more affordable tickets. I hope he will be pleased about that.
T6. The impact assessment for the anti-strikes Bill stated that on a strike day last year, 20% of rail services were still operational. Clearly, the Tories think that 20% is too low, but to a layman, that is a minimum service. What minimum service will they impose on workers under threat of sack?
We have already written to our stakeholders and we will be launching a consultation. The results of that consultation, in terms of how the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill would work across the network and whether we would look at a proportion of the timetable or parts of the network, will be determined only when it has been completed. That is the right way to take the process forward.
T8. Thank you, Mr Speaker—I could not imagine being anywhere more joyful than in the Chamber. The Liberal Democrat and Labour authorities in Cambridgeshire are introducing the country’s most draconian congestion charge, but they claim that they are being forced to do that by the Department for Transport, which supposedly rejected Cambridgeshire’s bid for bus funding because they were not committed to road charging. Can my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State confirm that that is untrue and that the Department did not require Cambridgeshire to commit to congestion charging to secure bus funding?
I am happy to confirm that bus funding has never been linked to road charging. A disagreeable pattern seems to be emerging where Labour politicians, backed by the Liberal Democrats, are not being entirely straightforward with the people they represent about road pricing schemes. I am pleased that my hon. Friend is holding them to account, even on his birthday.
T7. The north has one third of the levelling-up funding, yet train and bus services are a fraction of what they were. Every train service between Barnsley and Manchester is cancelled or delayed today and it takes two buses to get from neighbouring Rotherham to Elsecar. Can the Minister explain to my constituents, who simply cannot rely on public transport, how he can possibly think that the Government are levelling up?