Here are the climate-related sections of speeches by MPs during the Commons debate Regional Transport Inequality.
13:29 Catherine Atkinson (Labour)
One of the reasons that I was so keen to be on the Transport Committee was that transport is essential to economic growth and decarbonisation. The connectivity that transport brings is equally important up and down the country, but the amount of investment that regions get for transport has historically been miles apart. Transport is the most unequally distributed of areas of spending, including education and health.
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13:39 Greg Stafford (Conservative)
Meanwhile, as I mentioned, the Government wasted £250 million nationalising South Western Railway. That money could have delivered a permanent Bordon-to-Liphook bus link for 1,000 years. Instead, urban areas get Crossrail and trams, while my constituents get cancellations and four-carriage trains. That is clearly not acceptable. Much more help is needed for my constituents. Rural communities such as mine cannot keep being treated as second class. Levelling up, economic growth and net zero—all laudable aims—mean nothing if millions of people in my constituency and the surrounding areas cannot get a bus on a Sunday, or a train with more than four carriages on a Monday morning. That is the reality of Labour’s transport policy: higher fares, wasted money and broken promises. That is unacceptable to my constituents and, I hope, unacceptable to the constituents of every single Member of this House.
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14:02 Liz Saville Roberts (Plaid Cymru)
In Wales, we want to improve our productivity, and we want the means to do it. The spring statement in June offered only a token gesture towards addressing the deep-rooted funding disparities that Wales faces. For example, the Government’s suggestion that the £445 million of rail investment—over 10 years—will compensate for the historical underfunding of the Welsh network or the multibillion-pound injustice of Wales’s exclusion from HS2 funding is simply not credible. Where are the reinforcements against climate change? Where is the electrification of our lines?
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Mary Foy (Labour)
The Government’s Bus Services (No. 2) Bill is a chance to put this right. With franchising, fair pay and investment in modern vehicles, we can build a system that works for passengers, supports jobs and meets our climate goals. Reliable and affordable public transport should not be a luxury; it is the foundation of a fair economy and connected communities. My constituents in the City of Durham deserve no less. They deserve a transport service that serves local people, not profit, and Ministers must act to deliver it.
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