Delivery of Public Services — House of Commons, 2022-06-28
Topic: Transportation
Huw William Merriman (Conservative, Centre-right): I will keep to the eight minutes you have asked of us, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will take the opportunity to focus on three issues. Two of them, long waits for driving licences and backlogs at the airports, are mentioned in the motion; the third, delivery of rail, is not. However, while it may not have made it on to the motion, we are certainly all aware it was an issue for us last week and will continue to be so Looking first at the backlogs at the airports, there have been issues and challenges there. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury is absolutely right to say that we are not alone: Schiphol had a cancellation rate of about 11% during the period in question, while Gatwick’s, for example, was 2%. The situation has been poor across Europe, but it is particularly challenging for passengers to have their flights cancelled at the last minute One large reason for it is that only on 17 March did the industry get complete clearance for travel restrictions to be dropped in their entirety. Airlines were also required by Parliament to use 70% of their slots, or they would lose them. A combination of those two factors, and the fact that many airlines had taken out covid loans and had to start paying them back, led to a decision that they would ramp up over summer. However, it has been challenging for them to do so. There were 5,000 jobs lost in the international travel sector in this country on a monthly basis, and that has had an impact The airports collectively lost £10 billion, so it has been very difficult for them to ramp back up, and it takes a long time to get staff on to the frontline. It can take as much as three months to go through the vetting and clearance process. Of course, that has to be strict—it is for security—but I will shamelessly plug the Transport Committee’s recommendations here The first recommendation was for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to help with a personal statement where people cannot fill in all the parts of their five-year employment history as required. It is great to see that that is now in place. Many people worked in different sectors and parts of industry that have gone under during covid, and it has been difficult to get that five-year map. That is a great change, as is the ability to train workers while they are in their final vetting stage; again, the Government have accepted the recommendation for more flexibility. The ability to train more people within the line of sight has also helped. I praise the Government for the work they have done to make that easier However, the number of flights being cancelled at the last minute is just not good enough for passengers or for the industry. I welcome the steps the Government have taken to ease the 70% rule: for airlines that cancel with 14 or more days’ notice, that flight will go towards their 70% rather than counting towards them losing the slot. That is the kind of flexibility the industry needs I particularly praise Gatwick airport, which has taken the novel approach of capping the number of flights. It could see that the industry was trying to fly at 2018 figures but did not have the staff to do so, as I have just mentioned. The cap should make for a more bearable experience for passengers. The flights that are cancelled would just be those flying to the same destination on the same day; otherwise, the airlines would have to pay out. Sensible measures have been taken, and I welcome them. I would just say to those on the Front Bench: can we please get the Civil Aviation Authority more up-front powers? It is still going through the court process from the Ryanair industrial action of 2018 because it does not have the ability to stop poor behaviour when it occurs. However, I do welcome what the Government have done On long waiting lists for driving licences, as has been mentioned, drivers have been unable to take up work because there has been such a long delay to the paper-based process. According to the DVLA, at one point, due to social distancing, reductions in staff on-site and industrial action, the backlog got to 1.6 million. We have continued to write to the DVLA as a Committee and hold it to account. It last reported that the backlog was down to 890,000. It always has a run rate of 400,000 at any one time but assured us that the rate will get down to the business-as-usual rate by September. We will continue to hold it to account. At that time, it was the one sector of the civil service, or agency, that seemed to be struggling, and there are questions for the management as to whether people really can work from home in a manner that for other parts of the civil service and agencies seems to work quite well. Management are on notice that they need to do better The third aspect, which is not referenced in the motion but is so important, is rail. I talked about the 5,000 jobs lost each month in the airline industry because it had to make its own way through. We supported rail to the tune of £16 billion. There were no redundancies apart from a package of voluntary redundancy that was announced, and got a high uptake, last year. In direct contrast to what the airline sector saw, the rail system has been supported by us all. It is incredibly disappointing to see the strikes. I call for the unions to look at the reforms as not just a way of increasing productivity that will give their members a pay rise, but as making the railways safer for the workforce and for passengers. Why do we still require people on the track when technology can do it better, so it is safer for them and safer for passengers? We need both parties to work together to end the strikes. Rail is not being delivered, and it would have been nice if the Opposition had recognised that we all need to support it My last point is on the impact of inflation. In all three sectors I have talked about, industrial action has been occurring or is ongoing. Inflation-busting pay increases are completely counterproductive for those who are seeking them but also for the wider public who have to pay for them, because all they do is put up inflation even more and take away the pay rise at that end. They also have to be paid for. Let me give an example. The refuse strike at Wealden District Council in my constituency has been settled at a cost of 27%. That will be paid for by all council tax payers in my constituency. The last increase in council tax has all been eaten up by the previous pay settlement, so there will not be enough to fund this one, and all the benefits we could bring to the district council are being taken away. How will it be paid for? The council cannot go into deficit and therefore there could be job losses, so one person’s pay rise is somebody else’s job loss With the cost of living challenges, I understand that there will be pay demands in the public sector, but we all know—certainly Conservative Members do—that somebody has to pay for that, and it will be all our voters. We also know that inflation breeds inflation, and so it knocks out the pay rise. It effectively becomes a zero-sum game. I hope that all of us in Parliament can call for restraint—for people to be sensible and reasonable, and try to find productivity gains to pay for those increases—but if we are not careful things will get very bad indeed in the public sector and that will not benefit anybody in this place.