Improving Air Quality — House of Commons, 2018-06-28
Topic: Transportation
Kelvin Peter Hopkins (Independent, Unknown): It is a great pleasure to speak in this debate, and I congratulate the Select Committees on bringing forward this important report. Effective action on air quality is now vital and urgent. I live in a town centre with heavy traffic and am, I think, personally affected as much as anyone by poor air quality. I also congratulate hon. Members on a series of first-class, informative and persuasive speeches I have a particular interest in the transport aspects of our air quality problems, and I have two proposals to advance today. I have had a long association with transport policy. I was the transport policy officer at the TUC in the 1970s, and later I worked on transport policy at the National and Local Government Officers’ Association, which became part of Unison. NALGO and others put forward a proposal to transfer the whole cost of vehicle licensing to fuel. We have a sliding scale now, but it is less effective than transferring the total cost to fuel. The advantages are that it would promote and encourage the use of fuel-efficient vehicles—hybrids and electric vehicles, in particular—and deter excessive vehicle usage and mileage. For many, it is necessary to own a vehicle. Less well-off people who live in rural areas depend on private motor transport, and having a cheaper vehicle would be better for them, while it would deter excessive car usage by better-off people—those like ourselves who perhaps drive our cars more than we should. I still believe that such a policy would be sensible, even though successive Governments have rejected the idea, at least so far, and that it should be given further consideration My second interest, and my primary concern, is to advance the case for GB Freight Route, a scheme to build a freight priority railway line from the channel tunnel to Glasgow, linking all the major economic regions of Britain to each other and to the continent of Europe. It would take 5 million lorry journeys off our roads each year and save millions of tons of toxic emissions. We would need to make possible the carriage of lorry trailers and lorries on trains, however, as significant modal shift for freight from road to rail cannot take place unless lorry trailers can be transported on trains. Our historic rail network cannot carry such traffic because of loading gauge restrictions. The tunnels and bridges are too small and too tight to accommodate lorry trailers on trains GB Freight Route would overcome that problem. It would be constructed on old track bed and under-utilised lines and has been precisely designated as a route. Sites for terminals where lorry trailers would be lifted on and off trains have been identified, close to motorways serving our major cities and regions. GB Freight Route has major support from a wide range of interests including major hauliers, Eurotunnel, supermarket logistics departments and many others. I have made many presentations, including to Rail Ministers in the past, and intend to carry on doing so I should declare an interest—a non-pecuniary interest, I emphasise—as a member of the team promoting GB Freight Route. We have received support from a transport consultancy and a major railway equipment company, which have raised the matter with the Transport Secretary. Other members of our team include experienced railway engineers, a major haulier and a member with city experience and links. We have, then, a wide range of skills in our team promoting the scheme Today is perhaps not the time to go into great detail about GB Freight Route, but I hope it will be supported by all those concerned about the air quality crisis that affects us all in Britain and which must be addressed. GB Freight Route can and should make a substantial contribution to improving air quality, especially in and around our cities, and I hope that hon. Members will consider supporting it and urge the Government to give it serious and positive consideration.