Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2017-11-30
Topic: Mixed Topics
Questions: What assurances can Ministers give to help taxi drivers who buy the new electric taxi before the vehicle excise duty change comes into force?; Train services in Manchester and the north are poor, but prices keep going up and up. A constituent sent me a photo showing delays on all but one of 18 trains between 8 am and 9 am from Levenshulme in my constituency. Appallingly, the stations does not have disabled access either. Will the Minister take steps to improve the situation so that my constituents can get to work?; May I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his statement yesterday, which will be broadly welcomed? I much admire his gumption in sticking to his guns on an important matter. Does he agree that the service for my constituents on the East Grinstead line continues to fall well short of satisfactory? Is he aware that that is often due to the fact that train crew do not turn up? Does he agree that that is a failure of leadership and management and will he tell the company to smarten itself up?; Transport for London transformed the dilapidated Silverlink north London line, changing it from two-car trains twice an hour to the renewed London Overground with five-car trains every 10 minutes. My constituents want to know when the delays at the decrepit Acton Main Line and West Ealing stations will finish and when TfL Crossrail will take over. First Group seems to have forgotten how to run small stations.; The central forecast of the Office for National Statistics is that the population will hit 70 million by 2029—just 12 years’ time—which is up by 5 million from today and represents an increase of 8%. What is the Department’s estimate of growth in the number of vehicles over that same 12-year period? Given that our superb roads Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman), is enthusiastic about the design of our road network, how will his enthusiasm help to meet that challenge?; In July a three-year-old boy experienced a life-threatening allergic reaction on a plane when fellow passengers started eating the nuts they had been served. Thankfully he survived, but I know from personal experience how terrifying it is to go into anaphylactic shock, and the last place a person would want that to happen is 30,000 feet in the air when they are hours from formal medical attention. Will the Secretary of State agree to meet me and a group of campaigners to explore solutions that would enable the 2% of the population who have a nut allergy to fly with confidence?; Along with many other Londoners, my constituents are concerned about the number of promises the Mayor appears to be breaking on transport infrastructure. Will my right hon. Friend confirm exactly what the Mayor now needs to do to progress Crossrail 2 so it does not become another one of his broken promises?; Bradford and the whole Yorkshire region have been locked in a dispute with the Department for Communities and Local Government over Yorkshire devolution, meaning that we will have to compete for limited funding from the transforming cities fund, rather than being entitled to it like areas with elected Mayors, because of DCLG’s stubbornness. Will the Minister therefore speak to colleagues in DCLG to help to break this deadlock and unlock the transport funding the region desperately needs?; South Western Railway plans to reduce the number of trains going through Queenstown Road station in my constituency from seven trains an hour to just four. Given the increased number of residents and commuters, and given that the station is on one of the busiest lines, will the Secretary of State commit to looking again at this ill-thought-out policy?
Andrew Joseph McDonald (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful to you, Mr Speaker. I seek your clarification. Not an hour ago, I raised the question of the £2 billion that was due from Stagecoach to the Treasury. The Secretary of State said yesterday: "let us be absolutely clear for the House that as we bring the east coast franchise to a close and move to the new arrangements, no one will get any bail-out".—[Official Report, 29 November 2017; Vol. 632, c. 344.] He clarified that by also saying that every franchise makes a parent-company commitment before taking out a contract and will be held to that commitment, to be paid in full. That is £232 million—