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Showing every spoken contribution, including 12,832 under 12 words. Hide short remarks
Cities such as Manchester and Liverpool have benefited enormously from their regional devolution. Greater Glasgow, 30 years ago, was split up into more than a dozen local authorities, so I ask the Secretary of State to press the Scottish Government to devolve power out of Edinburgh and into Glasgow.
The Minister mentions the attacks that Iran is carrying out. Will he join me in recognising that cyber-attacks are one of the consistent threats Iran has posed to the United Kingdom, and that we must ensure in any negotiation with Iran that those attacks are prevented and stopped?
rose—
The right hon. Gentleman is, as always, making a very good speech. I want to make a point that I think is often under-appreciated when we talk about drones and drone warfare. The Ukrainians are, of course, world-leading, but I think that many of us in the west did not realise the extent to which Iran had advanced its drone technology. For instance, Iranian Shahed drones have been used by Russia to harm civilians in Ukraine. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that we must watch closely not just what our allies are developing, but what our adversaries are developing?
My constituents in Stoke-on-Trent Central are used to just plugging something in, switching a switch and there being electrical power, but I think we can all accept that with extreme weather becoming a bigger pattern in our lives, these events may be more frequent in the future. What conversations is the Minister having with colleagues across Government about developing public education programmes to explain how consumers can do their bit to help reduce demand at peak times, much like the water companies do when there is extreme heat? Given that we have discussed the speculation, and the whistleblowers who have rightly come forward, on the Floor of the House, can the Minister commit that once the independent inquiry has completed, the report is brought to the House so that we can discuss the outcome with the same prominence as we have discussed the speculation?
Fewer!
My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the malign influence. Following some of the attacks in Iran and the Iranian people seeking to change their leadership, he will have seen the same report as I saw that when the Iranian Government turned off aspects of their domestic internet, hundreds of X accounts in this country, purporting to support far-right activity but also Scottish independence, fell silent. That is hugely important, and we need to look at how malign disinformation accounts in the UK are pursuing domestic political agendas in the UK and being funded and operated by non-existent people—bots—in Iran.
Will my hon. Friend take an intervention?
I believe the point my hon. Friend is making is that the Iranian state is sponsoring these bot farms that are pumping out political points in the UK, which are a perfectly legitimate debate point, but are not underpinned by real people expressing real views. They are done in the most reductive way to stimulate dissent rather than discussion.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Murrison. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Luke Murphy) for securing this debate and giving me a chance to talk about the Alton estate in Roehampton in my constituency. It is also a pleasure to follow on from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who always brings wisdom and a flavour of Northern Ireland to every debate, which I fully appreciate. The Alton estate in Roehampton in my constituency is home to over 13,000 people. It is one of the largest housing estates in the country, and it was built in 1954. It is a beautiful area; it is right next to Richmond Park, and it has some listed stilt blocks designed by Le Corbusier. It is a beautiful estate and a fantastic community. I am so proud to be the MP for Roehampton. However, the estate has been run down for too long. It is an area of high deprivation and high health inequalities. From one side of my Putney constituency to the other, in the Alton, there is a 10-year life expectancy difference. It also suffers from poor transport links. The failure of the estate was recognised in 2010 by the then Conservative council of Wandsworth, which said, “Yes, we need to do some regeneration. We will look into this.” Since 2010, regeneration of the Alton estate has been discussed, but as yet it has not yet been delivered to the people of the Alton. A plan was developed by the Conservative council, but it was unpopular and widely not liked. People very much wanted regeneration, but not that plan. The developer pulled out of the plan during covid—it pulled out from all the regenerations that it was doing in London—so in 2022, when the Labour council came in, it looked at it again. That Labour council became the developer, and that has been key to the success of the plan so far. It employed the HTA Design architecture company, which did a community co-design, stripped things back and talked to people, and has a good plan that the community really like. The plan has a new library, a new dedicated youth centre —I was a bit obsessed with that part, because the stripping back of our youth clubs in the previous regeneration plan and the estate as a whole has been dreadful—and a new community centre. It will have a shopping parade, with shops—I spoke to Lidl only this week—that will have affordable fruit and vegetables, and two GP surgeries with the space to do preventative healthcare, which will build healthy living into the regeneration. It will have a new police hub, a new family hub and a nursery. It will demolish 177 substandard houses, which have been left to become run down, and build 615 new homes. In total, 473 new homes will be created, with priority given to Alton residents, who will watch them being built. The largest regeneration ballot ever in this country was held last October, and the people on the Alton estate voted by 82% for the plan—that is an overwhelming majority, a real yes vote. That yes vote has unlocked an additional £60 million of funding from the Mayor of London. I am disappointed that then Conservative opposition campaigned against the Alton renewal plan. A couple of months ago, we had local elections, and the Conservatives now run Wandsworth council by a vote of 29 councillors to 28—a small margin. I hope that the new council will understand how important the regeneration is to the people of the Alton and will go ahead with the plan, without doing a whole new round of consolation or lots of cutbacks that reduce it. I also hope that they will keep the amount of social housing in the plan. The GLA funding for social housing is £220,000 per unit, but it is £70,000 per unit for shared ownership, so it makes sense for the new Conservative administration to keep the high levels of social housing in the regeneration plan. I recently met the new cabinet member for housing at Wandsworth council, and I made clear the residents’ strong view that the full plan is needed. He has not said that he will cut it back, but I am worried that he might. I hope that the Minister will lend full support to the Alton renewal project. To do anything less than the full plan will be to let down the residents on the Alton estate —they have waited for so long. I would like to end by paying tribute to the Our Roehampton organisation, which provides amazing support and brings together brilliant people across the estate to create community social cohesion. To do anything other than fully go ahead with the plan would stop significant growth and opportunity for residents. The plan will provide a safer, healthier and revitalised Alton that everyone can be really proud of, and I hope the Minister will give it her full support.
Does the shadow Minister know that since Wandsworth council became Conservative, the only decisions it has made have been to cancel all of the housing development on one estate and partially cancel it on another? We are now wondering what will happen with the Alton estate. Does he support building more houses and keeping them as social housing, especially on the Alton estate?
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I begin by apologising to my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Fleetwood (Lorraine Beavers) and to the rest of the House for my late arrival to the debate. I thank my hon. Friend for securing the debate. She may have noticed that I am not the Minister for Nature, my hon. Friend for Coventry East (Mary Creagh), but I hope to do her justice in responding to this debate because I know how hard she has worked on this issue and how seriously she takes it. I thank hon. Members from across the House, who have made valuable points today. This debate reminds me why it is so important to deal properly with rubbish and why all Members of the House support bins, whether they are Counts or not—sorry for my throwaway comment. People rightly expect their community to be a safe, clean and pleasant place to live. They expect clean air, thriving natural spaces and confidence that waste is being managed responsibly. Most importantly, they expect environmental regulation and waste management to be working in the interests of local people. I absolutely agree, and so do the Government. I will quickly summarise some of the actions that the Government have taken, led by my hon. Friend the Minister for Nature, and the achievements of the waste crime action plan commitments. My hon. Friend has already reformed the carriers, brokers and dealers regime, which was debated in the House of Commons just last week. She introduced digital waste tracking, the legislation for which was debated on 16 June. In March, she published updated statutory guidance and a code of practice for local authorities on litter enforcement powers and how to use them. She has also published best practice guidance for local authorities on using their powers to seize vehicles related to fly-tipping. As well as that, the Minister has overseen the doubling of the Environment Agency’s waste crime enforcement budget, with an additional £45 million over the next three years. As my hon. Friends have rightly pointed out, it has been difficult for the Environment Agency to do its job given that it has faced 14 years of austerity and cuts, but it is now getting additional money to carry out its duties. The Environment Agency is building a new waste intelligence and analysis unit and has already started interviewing new staff for it. It has also secured access to key land registry data sets, allowing for quicker identification of the landowner when new illegal waste sites appear. Courts can use their powers in the Crime and Policing Act 2026 to put points on the driving licences of those guilty of fly-tipping. We will make fly-tippers clear up their own mess, and we will consult on how to make that commitment a reality. We have also started clearing up some of the worst illegal waste sites that blight communities up and down the country. We are moving quickly for the clear-up of the site at Bolton House Road in Wigan and installing fire and security mitigations. This is not time for reviews of waste; it is time for more action, and that is exactly what this Government are doing. In that context, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Fleetwood for her tireless efforts in drawing attention to the Jameson Road landfill in her constituency. Her constituents made a fantastic choice at the last election in voting for a tireless champion for their community and someone who —I know this from experience—does not let an issue go once she gets on to it. When it comes to my hon. Friend, we know that we have to do exactly what we are told. As my hon. Friend set out, too many of her constituents have struggled with persistent odour complaints for far too long. Nobody should feel trapped in their homes, workplaces or schools because bad smells mean that they cannot go outside or even open their windows. We are obviously keeping a very close eye on sites such as Jameson Road, and we are using our regulatory powers through the Environment Agency to ensure that operators are held accountable for poor compliance. The Environment Agency has already served enforcement notices to mitigate the worst effects of the odour at Jameson Road. My hon. Friend knows that because, as she mentioned, she meets with the Environment Agency every week; she is doing a brilliant job of holding them to account. In May earlier this year, the Environment Agency varied the permit to restrict the site to accepting only low-risk waste such as soil, concrete and bricks. A regulatory notice is also in force, which requires the operator to remediate the site, including temporary covering and subsequent permanent capping works. Those measures, alongside enhanced inspections and expanded monitoring arrangements, are expected to lead to a reduction in the incident reports associated with the site. The Environment Agency will continue to maintain close regulatory oversight of the site and hold the operator to account—I know that my hon. Friend will, too—for delivering improvements that local communities rightly expect. The operator must continue to deliver the required improvements, and local communities should be confident that regulatory intervention will follow if standards are not met. Let me be clear: where compliance falls short at any waste site, the regulator is prepared to take further action as necessary, and it will work closely with the Government to ensure that communities are protected from serious harm. I recognise that many other hon. Members in attendance today have poorly performing waste sites in their constituencies, and I will do my absolute best to answer as many questions as possible. My hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Cat Smith) raised concerns about what is happening at the landfill in her area. As she will know, we already have the extra £45 million, which should help in her area. My hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) and I have had a meeting about the flies; flies were also mentioned by a couple other people. It is awful when we see a huge swarm of them, and they can enter people’s homes. We have had a number of meetings about the issue and we are staying in close contact. To answer another of my hon. Friend’s questions, I should say that our analysis is that the Environment Agency needs better enforcement powers, which is why we have committed in the waste crime action plan to give more powers to the EA as a priority for the teams. It is also why we are giving an extra £45 million, as has already been mentioned. I have to pay tribute to the campaigning of my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee). He has not missed an opportunity in the voting Lobby or when seeing me around Parliament to raise what is happening in Walleys Quarry. The latest information I have for him is that, following the operator’s liquidation, the Environment Agency is managing the site to prevent pollution risks. Work is focused on site stability, maintaining capping, managing leachate and developing longer-term engineering solutions. Although the odour reports remain very low, the Environment Agency is continuing to monitor the site to see if there is any increase in the odour. I know that my hon. Friend is on the case and will mention it to me if anything changes there. The hon. Members for Chippenham (Sarah Gibson) and for Melksham and Devizes (Brian Mathew) mentioned the Lower Compton landfill site. The latest I can tell them about that site is that permanent capping of the operational area has been completed, and new gas infrastructure is due to be installed. The monitoring identified occasional exceedances of odour annoyance guidelines, but no exceedance of the World Health Organisation’s human health guidelines. The waste permits specify acceptance controls, and those can include sampling and testing. Let me see who else I have on my list: to respond to the hon. Member for Ely and East Cambridgeshire (Charlotte Cane), I should say that the site she mentioned has had 30 fires since reopening in February 2025. I believe most of those to be due to arson, and most to be outside the site. The Environment Agency is working closely with the operator and other partners on investigating the fires on the site. I turn to what my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton North (Mrs Blundell) said. The Government committed in our manifesto to moving the UK towards a circular economy. We will be publishing our circular economy growth plan soon. On the Pilsworth site in my hon. Friend’s constituency, the Environment Agency continues to closely monitor odour issues, which remain below World Health Organisation levels of concern, although that is not sufficient to reassure my hon. Friend’s constituents. That is why we are investing in the EA, with new enforcement powers and new funding. I absolutely champion the local constituents whom my hon. Friend mentioned, who have come together to campaign on this issue. I reassure them and her that they absolutely have a voice with this Government. We are listening to them and taking them seriously. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South and Walkden (Yasmin Qureshi). We know each other from previous campaigns together, so I know what a brilliant campaigner she is. I am pleased that some mitigations have been made and that things are starting to show improvements. I support her call for more joined-up work across the different agencies. If I can support her in helping to get that joined-up work, I absolutely will.
I am conscious that I am speaking outside my brief in responding to this debate, but I will ensure that my hon. Friend the Minister for Nature hears the hon. Member’s comment and gets back to him with her thoughts on that one. I do not want to miss anyone out. My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Sarah Russell) raised the work that the Environment Agency is doing and—again—the problems that people have with flies. I totally agree with her point about putting people before profit—it should never be the other way round. A land remediation pathfinder scheme is launching this autumn, and support is available for local authorities’ work if needed. That will fund additional local authority resources, so additional money is coming in for some local authorities. I want to give my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Fleetwood time to respond, so I will speed up. I say to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) that although waste policy is devolved and the Northern Irish circumstances are unique, we enjoy a strong relationship with our colleagues in Northern Ireland. We are soon to commission new research on the drivers and regulatory factors underpinning waste crime, and are actively working with Northern Ireland colleagues on the design of that research. I hope I have responded to most of the comments made by hon. Members. I know that they will continue to speak to my hon. Friend the Minister for Nature where necessary and make sure that the issue continues to be a priority for her and the rest of the Government. Just in case this is my last time addressing everyone in this role, Dr Murrison, can I say thank you to my wonderful officials? Thank you to all the team I have worked with; it has been an absolute pleasure. Hopefully I will be back in the new term, but we never know. For the moment, over and out.
Will the right hon. Member give way?
On that point, will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way, particularly if he is drawing to a conclusion. Of course, the big “no confidence” debate was the 2024 general election. Before reflecting further on defence, can we go back to his enthusiasm for more exploration of oil and gas? The most optimistic timeline puts the recovery of oil and gas from Jackdaw and Rosebank five years away, but it could be 10 years away. How will that help us with the situation in the strait of Hormuz?
On that point, will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Some colleagues have questioned the need for this debate. Like others, I welcome the news that we are going to proscribe the IRGC, but online, I have seen people who are basically antisemitic claiming that this is some kind of plot, that Jews are taking over the world, and that they were behind this decision. That is why it was right to have this debate today. It has been fantastic to hear colleagues from across the House reminding us of just how barbaric the regime is, and of the role it plays in the UK. I thank Ministers for the proscription, and I thank those who took part in this debate who talked about this barbaric regime.
The hon. Gentleman says that he wished the Government had acted sooner. Did the National Security (State Threats) Act 2026 not get Royal Assent a week or two ago? I think our Ministers have acted very quickly indeed.
I congratulate the Prime Minister on being the recipient yesterday of a Légion d’honneur medal, and on the passing of the Public Office (Accountability) Bill, which will mean that these scandals—I include those relating to Grenfell and Windrush—will never happen again. Does he agree that the media have sometimes twisted the knife a bit and made the pain worse for the victims’ families in those scandals, so can he revisit some of the same principles of accountability and justice for the gutter press?
It is a day of sad farewells, and I will add to them by saying a very sad farewell from all of us across the House to Margaret and Godfrey in the Tea Room, who are leaving soon. I did not expect to be so emotional, but here we are. I want to say something very clear and simple about what the Iran war means for us. It shows us that our affordability and security crises are intertwined, and that they lean on each other. More than that, it shows us that while we deal with those crises through policy, we also need a political vision that can unite us as we face the most important and dangerous Parliament in almost a century. Since the Iran war started, we have seen oil and gas prices rise significantly. Oil prices are up by around 30%, and gas prices are up by 70%. The longer the strait remains closed, the worse that will get. What does that mean for us at home? It means higher prices and less affordable lives, but more than all that, it means more anger and fury on our streets. As people become unable to afford decent lives, they get angry at the system and angrier at us in this place. If we do not make their lives affordable, we cannot expect them to have a stake in, or defend, our nation. Only by ensuring that every single person has a reason to believe in this country and this place, and only by making lives affordable, can we ensure that we defend ourselves at home. We cannot ask people to risk or give up their life for a country that does not guarantee a decent life to them or their children. As for our security crisis, we see that the far more unstable and dangerous world that we face is one in which the economy and affordability get worse. We are dependent on fossil fuels sold by dictators, including those in the most dangerous parts of the world, and that lack of security in energy abroad hits us here at home. The world is changing before our eyes. America’s eyes are no longer focused on Europe as much as they used to be; they are turning to Asia and the middle east. It is clear to us in European NATO, and it should be clear to us in this House, that we must take more steps to defend ourselves. We as individuals all have a responsibility to state very clearly that we must defend this nation. The only way we prevent war is by preparing for one. It is the only way that we keep this country and our constituents safe for this generation and generations to come. Finally, we see a nation that is far more divided and angry than ever before, partly because people cannot afford a decent life, but also because when they turn on their screens, they see war in the middle east, wildfires across the globe and a world that is far less secure and stable. They do not believe in us because they do not see a way for us to provide a decent future for them. That is on us to fix.
Short answer: yes. Longer answer: I think everyone across this House would give that condemnation as well. The latest conflagration, by our understanding, is that Iran struck a tanker, and that led to the end of the ceasefire. That is making us far poorer at home, but it is also making the region less secure and stable. I say this to every Member in the House: although we disagree strongly and deeply, a lot unites us at this moment. Members from across the House were able to unite to face challenges a century ago, and I hope that we can do exactly the same, as we should, now and in the future.
I think we have to explain it to the public, although they also saw the attack on Jaguar Land Rover and they understand the attack on sea cables. They are seeing it on the news more and more often. They understand that Russia is a threat, and they see the prices at the pump. What is far more dangerous for us is that this slow-building crisis is much harder to deal with than a rapid one. The idea that we have war in Europe is now something we accept. Since 1945, we have not really had to take on board the idea that we can redraw borders by force, that military action can once again be here and that NATO can be tested. This is a new thing for us, so we have to tell the public both that war is on our doorstep and that resilience is now far more important. For us, there is clearly a path forward, with two sets of policies: first, make life affordable; secondly, defend our nation. In terms of making life affordable, there is an immediate challenge. We are seeing higher fossil fuel prices leading to higher energy costs at home, and food and fertiliser getting more expensive. There are ways we can get costs down, and some of them are a bit easier than others. We can invest in clean energy and we can do direct reductions in energy bills, but for other things, like food, it is more difficult for us. That is why we need the second policy. We must also create good jobs in every single part of this country, but especially in those post-industrial areas where there have not been enough good jobs for an incredibly long time. Those are the places that are turning away from us and, indeed, from most of the Opposition parties as well.
First, I would like to thank the hon. Member for calling me an esteemed economist while the Whips are sitting on the Front Bench. He will appreciate that I am not going to annoy any Chancellor by putting forward any kind of tax rises today, but there is a clear commitment on the Labour Benches to fund the defence investment plan. The hon. Member is right to say that, fundamentally, we need to fund defence in this country, because the only way we can prevent war, and live up to our promise to ourselves, is to ensure that we prepare for one. Part of that is about funding, which is important, but it is also about the defence economic strategy. It is not just about the munitions and drones we are producing today; it is about how we scale that up in the case of a conflict. How do we make a conflict unthinkable because people know that the British state would stand with our NATO allies to win it convincingly?
I have every confidence that we will prevent war by preparing for it, and that we are going to fund that, but beyond the funding, which is important, how do we ensure that we can achieve the scale-up that we need? How do we show that we can defend this country? The hon. Member and I may have a back and forth, but I think we agree that we need to help to defend this nation. There are Members of this House, however—they are obviously not in their seats today—who do not feel the same way. There are Members of this House who want to divide us, who are far too pally with Putin and who want to see us become weaker and more divided, because that is how they get what they want. They are part of an unholy alliance of ethnocrats and, as we are seeing now, cryptobillionaires. They want to see anger and division on one side and tax cuts for their billionaire mates on the other. Those are the people that all of us in the House today stand against, whether they are arguing with a bin or not. This is where we are. A House divided against itself cannot stand, and nor can our nation. The only way we can ensure that we meet the moment presented to us by this war in Iran, and indeed by all conflicts around the world, is by first making life affordable for every single person so that they have a stake in this nation, and also by securing our nation and making it safer, in order to get costs down here at home. We on the Labour Benches know now what we have always known: that the only way we can meet this moment is together, that we are more than the sum of our parts and that can we achieve affordability and security through our common endeavour. Together we will, but divided we absolutely will not.
12. What assessment he has made of the effectiveness of city region deals in Scotland.
West Dunbartonshire is one of eight local authorities that make up the Glasgow city region deal. The local authority is delivering an ambitious project to create a major industrial and commercial development on the former ExxonMobil terminal site on the Clyde. The enabling works are funded jointly by the council and the Glasgow city region deal, to the tune of £45 million. Does the Secretary of State agree that to reindustrialise every part of our nation, this Government must help unlock the economic potential of the site, and bring much-needed, well-paid and high-skilled jobs to West Dunbartonshire?
It is a real pleasure to open this debate on the A1 through North Northumberland. I have been seeking this debate for months. When I saw the time at which it was originally to have happened, I wondered whether someone somewhere had decided that this Scotsman did not really need to see the big match tonight. I am delighted to see that the business has been brought forward, and now I will be able to watch the game. On a serious note, this is a matter of huge importance, not just to my constituency but to the whole of the north-east of England. We should see it in the context of the question of how we push power, control and resources out to the regions through the devolution settlement, and how great infrastructure projects are delivered in the regions of this great country. According to the Newcastle Chronicle, on 31 May, Emma Bartle-Scott said to her husband that they should not use the A1 as part of their journey that day. She said: “I had a bad feeling that day…we had had the fatalities and I said to my husband that I didn’t know if we should go on the road.” Her worry was proven right. As the Scotts neared the end of their journey, and waited—stationary in the middle of the road—to turn off the A1, they were rear-ended and pushed into the other lane. If the drivers coming the other way had not been alert, they would have been hit head-on at 60 mph. Thankfully, the couple are okay, but the dreaded necessity of using the A1 is felt deeply throughout Northumberland. I would like to outline the condition of the road, welcome the support of the Government and National Highways for planned improvements to the road as part of road investment strategy 3, and advocate for greater investment in the road in the years ahead. The A1 is the issue for my constituents. I am contacted about it daily. There is not an issue that I am contacted about more than safety on the A1. The road is a critical part of my constituents’ lives, but it is one that they would rather do without. The A1 holds North Northumberland back and is littered with overlapping problems. It is not a safe road. It has also become a bit of a totem for the frustrations of my northern constituents. They feel, rightly, that investment is always going somewhere else, such as the deep south—Manchester, Leeds or somewhere like that—instead of to the true north. With the new rules of the Treasury’s Green Book and, as I said, with a devolution agenda coming to Westminster, I hope that the Government will increase their attention to the road, now and in the years to come. What is the current situation with the A1? It runs through nearly 50 miles of my constituency—the third-largest in England—from Morpeth to Berwick. I am a bit disappointed to be gazumped by my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Joe Morris), who has the largest constituency in England; I should mention that the A1 also runs through his constituency. The A1 is part of the National Highways strategic road network, and it is the road from London to Edinburgh. It is the east-coast equivalent of the M6, which is a three-lane highway, even through Cumbria; there is no comparison. The road is the central feature of my constituency. It is how my constituents get about—they use it in their thousands, daily—including me, my family and my team. Almost all of the 10 million tourists who come to Northumberland every year—many of them from abroad—will use the road in their travels, too. Tragically, since the beginning of May, six people have died on the A1, with more injured, and 11 people have died on the road over the last year alone. My prayers are with them and their loved ones. Police data, which has not yet been updated to include the most recent incidents, suggests that since 2014 there have been 768 accidents along the A1 through Northumberland, from Seaton Burn to Berwick, 176 of which were serious—and 24, sadly, were fatal. Although the number of less serious accidents is falling, serious and fatal accidents remain persistent. No one should lose their life on our roads. There are several problems with the A1. The first is the vast number of minor at-grade turnings—my office counted 140 such turnings from Morpeth to Berwick. At those junctions, stationary local traffic must merge with highway traffic along the same gradient, often on to a single lane. There are rarely slip roads to help build up speed, so the turnings are very abrupt. Cars wanting to cross to the other side must wait for gaps in traffic and time their crossings expertly. I am an experienced driver—I have been driving for about 30 years—and I find those crossing points, and especially getting from one side to the other, very worrying. Some of the crossings are so narrow that long vehicles and vans extend into the road, obstructing traffic that is going at 60 mph—I saw that the other day. Those crossing places are among the worst elements of the A1 and are loathed by everyone who has to use them. Data from 2025 suggests that intersections are responsible for 43% of crashes from Alnwick to Berwick and 30% of crashes on the southern section of the route. Mention Guyzance, Charlton, Hebron, Chevington, Fenwick, Belford or Denwick in my constituency and people might think of those villages, but they are more likely to think of the high-risk junctions there. The second problem is overtaking and unsafe driving. In 2021, the Planning Inspectorate noted that “the A1 suffers more overtaking accidents than would be expected on a road of this type.” Stretches such as Mousen Bends and the merging of lanes at dual and single sections are notorious. Indeed, my point was made when the regional director of National Highways and his team visited me to see the road last year. We did a drive up and down the road, and we had barely entered the single-lane section when we were overtaken by a car driving above the speed limit into traffic. No improvement to the road could fix such reckless behaviour, but the problem was emphasised by the merging of the lanes where we were. It was also tragic to learn that two recent fatalities involved foreign nationals. As North Northumberland becomes ever more popular in summer, tourists who lack local A1 know-how are risking their lives and those of local residents without knowing it. The third problem is mixed traffic use. That is not unique to the A1 in North Northumberland, but it is quite unusual to have a road where there are ordinary family cars, heavy goods vehicles, tractors—every manner of transport that we can imagine. On the single-lane sections, that has the effect of slowing down traffic and generating driver frustration, leading to the reckless overtaking that I just mentioned. Linked to that is the fourth problem: congestion. Average seconds per vehicle mile, which is a measure of traffic speed and congestion, are much higher than the national average north of Alnwick, and they are double the national average around Berwick and the Scottish border. Congestion on the A1 is so high because it lacks resilience and capacity. We talk a lot about road safety—as we should; it is the no. 1 priority—but the congestion wears down the people who live in Northumberland, as it is near constant. The single-lane stretches and frequency of collisions mean that even a minor incident has major consequences. Traffic is delayed and redirected through tiny rural villages, gumming up the entire region. All those problems—risky junctions and crossing points, dangerous or unfamiliar driving, mixed vehicle types and slow travel times—contribute to one another and create a road that lacks safety, resilience and capacity. There is no silver bullet for those problems, but dualling would certainly fix some of them. In the north-east and Northumberland, when we mention the A1, the first thing people think about is the duelling of the road. It is a saga that, in many ways, has been going on for over 50 years. In 2014, the Government promised they would dual the A1 from Morpeth to Ellingham, which is a 13-mile stretch. Between 2014 and 2024, the Conservatives in government did a variety of things: they left the EU, they went through five Prime Ministers and they saw the Scottish football team reach a major tournament for the first time since 1998. Yet one thing they could not do was lay 13 miles of new road in North Northumberland. The costs ballooned in that time to about £0.5 billion, and the funding for the project was quietly withdrawn in 2021. The project was briefly resurrected—to everyone’s surprise—just before the 2024 general election. No one at any point seemed to have figured out an answer to the most basic question: where will the money come from? That is despite my predecessor for the area being, albeit briefly, the Secretary of State for Transport. While it is certainly true that dualling would do a lot of good for the road, it is also true that a particular dualling project was long dangled and never delivered. I am pleased to have seen the recent attempts at cross-party focus on the road, and a desire to encourage the Government to get to a place where we could get these safety improvements and, ultimately, dualling. I welcome that, and I will work with anybody who seeks to achieve that. It is clear that what we need most urgently are sensible safety improvements that tangibly improve the quality of the road from Morpeth to Berwick. That includes improvements at key junctions, but also signage, markings, speed cameras and the like. Because of that long-promised dualling project, there have been no significant safety improvements on the road for over a decade. I was told that by National Highways.
Absolutely. I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. I will come on to that in a moment. This goes back to what I was saying about the Green Book, about the Treasury’s investment rules, and about how we decide where public money ultimately goes. This is as much about the economy as it is about safety. Over the past two years, my office has been working with National Highways to deliver two route treatment studies of the full 50-mile route, in which National Highways has assessed what needs to be done to the road. We now know exactly where the problems are and what the road needs, and I am really pleased that funding has been secured as part of RIS3, so that the A1 can have the necessary improvements that make journeys safer. I am grateful to the Minister and his predecessor for the time and attention that they have given to the A1 so far. I also want to share my appreciation for the National Highways team at Yorkshire and North East, who continue to work hard on improving this vital road. Planning is still continuing, but I am looking forward to driving on the A1 and seeing new improvements for the first time in over 10 years. As I hope I have demonstrated, however, the problems along the A1 are varied and overlapping. To be absolutely fair, they have been 50 years in the making and previous Governments, including my own, have not done what has been necessary with the A1. We also have to be honest that fixing these problems will require years of attention. It is not going to be possible for any Government to click their fingers and sort out 50 miles of the A1 in North Northumberland, but we have to make a start, and I wonder whether this might be the Government who will fix this road once and for all. I truly hope they will. That is why, ahead of the next road investment strategy—RIS4—in the coming years, I want to make the case for everything being on the table for the A1. That includes ongoing uplifts to the road’s condition, major improvements at problem junctions and, yes, dualling the entire road. I have mentioned the Treasury Green Book a couple of times, and its reforms have made it clear that value for money is about more than cost and a purely financial return on investment. The new Green Book is squarely behind the ambitions of place-based growth and long-term transformation, rather than a short-term, purely financial yield, and economic benefit to the locality, which my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Joe Morris) mentioned. That means that regions such as the north-east can be prioritised based on how their growth can be unlocked, by recognising where weak infrastructure limits the potential for new housing developments, tourism growth or business confidence. The focus on transformational change where a project might take decades to be fully realised is a quiet revolution that changes the way we think about improving the A1. All these changes must be acknowledged as we enter the RIS4 cycle. What consideration will the Minister and his Department give to the road as part of RIS4 and in the light of these Green Book changes? I fully support a menu of improvements to the road and believe that there is a sustainable case to be made for them. There is also a political case to be made. When the £11 billion lower Thames crossing gets the nod ahead of the A1, and when the London to Birmingham High Speed 2 line costs as much as the GDP of Belarus, my constituents might be inclined to suspect that, just occasionally, there is a north-south divide. Northern Powerhouse Rail and the TransPennine route upgrade are great, welcome projects, and I am genuinely pleased for the people who live in those parts of the country, but what about infrastructure in the true north of England? If we are serious about devolution and unlocking regional economies, and I think we are, the A1 is the place to start. In conclusion, the A1 dominates the lives of my constituents in North Northumberland. It is unsafe, lacks resilience and capacity, and is not fit for the future of a region that is booming in tourism and has so much to offer. It hangs over every journey that my constituents make. It hangs over my head every time I go up and down to constituency visits or to spend time with family. It is a mess of overlapping problems that chokes the region’s potential, and that is why I am so pleased that we have secured the first substantial improvements in over 10 years following Labour’s investment earlier this year. Instead of a long-dangled but never delivered dualling for the south of the constituency, we will have necessary improvements from Morpeth to Berwick. But I want to go further. My expectation is simple: a safer A1, including dualling. All options should be on the table. If we are serious about devolution, I urge the Minister and the Government to apply these reformed Green Book rules and deliver maximum improvements on the A1. The Scott family who I mentioned at the beginning thankfully survived their collision. Others tragically have not survived, and there will be more to come. It is our job to ensure that we do all we can to minimise the risks of this road, and we have no time to waste.
I thank my constituency neighbour for giving way. We may not agree on all of the narrative on what happened over the past decade, but does the hon. Gentleman agree with me that these infrastructure projects are not just about the day-to-day use of the road? They are about what binds our countries together across the border.
I wish to press a little on RIS4. One of the changes to the Green Book is about place-based approaches. Will that be under consideration so that ultimately the financial return on investment is not the be all and end all? Will consideration also be given to the place-based impact of some of the decisions?
It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I thank the hon. Member for South Antrim (Robin Swann) for securing this debate on an important issue facing hospitality businesses in Northern Ireland and for his recent question to me in Treasury orals on the same topic. I look forward to meeting him to discuss it further, as I committed to on the Floor of the House. I thank hon. Members for their interventions, too. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee) on his festivities over in Northern Ireland.
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I will.
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I will.
It is important that we return to the topic at hand, but I am very glad that my hon. Friend is happily married to, I am sure, a fantastic partner. The Government recognise the important contribution that hospitality businesses make to jobs, growth and local communities across Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom as a whole. Cafés, pubs, restaurants and hotels support local economies and, as the hon. Member for South Antrim set out, are important for employment, particularly of young people who are trying to find their way in the jobs market, get experience, get a foot in the door and ready themselves for a career of productive work. They also play a vital role in our high streets and town centres. I hear the concerns that have been raised about pressures facing the sector in Northern Ireland and across the wider country in terms of operating costs. I also understand the particular challenge in Northern Ireland from the comparisons with the hospitality VAT rate in the Republic of Ireland and cross-border competition. I recognise that the fact that consumers have that much more readily available choice is, as the hon. Gentleman said, a unique challenge facing businesses in Northern Ireland. I fully understand why he is raising the issue and campaigning on it on behalf of his constituents, and I commend him for his sterling work as a constituency MP.
There are a whole range of challenges and also benefits from the protocol and the Windsor framework. I agree with the hon. Member that they do not provide constraints on the policy choice on VAT. I always find it frustrating when Ministers hide behind legal constraints that perhaps are not always there, and I want to be up front with him: if a Government chose to do this, the protocol would not be a barrier. Members have focused on the potential merits of a Northern Ireland VAT reduction pilot for hospitality, but VAT is a broad-based tax on consumption that applies to a range of sectors, and it also applies on a UK-wide basis. The Government’s view is that different VAT rates would create divergence between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and impact the competitiveness of businesses between the two regions. I understand that Members are specifically talking about Northern Ireland, but across the country as a whole—some hon. Members did mention the broader campaign around reductions in VAT across the UK—a reduction to 10% in VAT for hospitality would cost around £11 billion a year, which is equivalent to the total expenditure on the Royal Navy or the annual child benefit bill. There would be significant practical challenges associated with introducing a pilot for a different VAT treatment for hospitality in Northern Ireland only. Businesses, His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, and consumers would then need to operate in a system that created different treatments for otherwise similar transactions. There would be boundary issues and administrative complexity to work through. The fact that I am not announcing this change today does not mean that the Government do not take this issue seriously and understand the representations being made. We are also not standing aside. The Chancellor has introduced the Great British summer savings scheme, which is a temporary reduction in VAT on eligible family attractions and children’s meals over this summer, helping families with costs and encouraging footfall during the summer holidays. In England, the Government have also introduced new business rates multipliers for eligible retail, hospitality and leisure properties, a package of transitional reliefs, and the supporting small business scheme, which together amount to £4.3 billion of additional spending. The Barnett formula is applied in the normal way to those changes, so the Northern Ireland Executive received £185 million in consequentials as a result of those decisions. The Government—and I personally, if I have the honour of staying in this role—will continue to listen carefully to representations from the hospitality sector, from the Northern Ireland Executive and, of course, from hon. Members. We will meet after the summer recess; I am as good as my word. However, we do not believe that a Northern Ireland-specific hospitality pilot is the right approach. As tempting as it is to burnish my devolution credentials ahead of an impending reshuffle, I will not make that commitment today. I thank the hon. Member for South Antrim for securing this debate and for strongly representing his community. This is an important issue, and I am happy to continue discussing it.
Right now, we are engaging in what could be seen as a similar proposal to the one put forward today. We are doing a time-limited reduction in VAT, not for one sector and one part of the country, but for particular leisure and hospitality activities and consumption across the country as a whole. I am sure that His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and others will conduct thorough evaluations of that, so that we can see the impact that it had. We expect businesses to pass the reduction in VAT on to consumers. Some big organisations, such as Merlin Entertainments, have already done that by setting new ticketing prices for families this summer, and many small businesses have been changing the prices on their menus for children’s meals. I hope that once this Great British summer savings period ends on 1 September, we will review that and look at the impact. Of course, the challenge with any VAT reduction is whether it will be passed on to consumers. To be clear, I do not begrudge businesses having more margin, but the objective of the hon. Member for South Antrim is to see prices fall. When VAT changes have been made in times gone by, the gains have not always flowed entirely to consumers. The Government have been working really hard to ensure that businesses pass on the reduction in the Great British summer savings scheme. As I say, we are really glad that many have done so. I look forward to continuing to discuss this important topic, and to seeing the impact of the temporary and targeted changes that we have made to VAT this summer. Question put and agreed to.
It is right that an investigation into these allegations has been confirmed, and I welcome reassurances that the grid remains stable. As an electrical engineer, I have always been in awe of the work of our grid, and of the challenges it faces: climate change, electrification, the demands of renewables and AI, and cyber-attacks. Could the Minister set out what steps the previous Government took during their 14-year tenure to invest in a more resilient grid, and what steps this Government have taken?