Transport Secretary Mark Harper interview.
Transport Secretary Mark Harper and Jame Stevenson chat with Mark Andrews in Wolverhampton.
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00:00Good afternoon, I'm Mark Andrews from the Express and Start. I am with the Conservative
00:07Parliamentary candidate for Wolverhampton North East, Jane Stevenson, and with the Transport
00:11Secretary, Mark Harper. Nice to meet you.
00:14Okay, first of all, you need to talk about the proposed Stettinall railway station. When
00:21can we see that on board? When do you expect to see the trains actually running for that?
00:27Well that particular station is a plan that was, there's an outline business case that's
00:32been done, it's work that's been funded, that was funded when Andy Street was the regional
00:37mayor, so that work is going to be taken forward. I'm sure if Jane is re-elected on the 4th
00:43of July, she will be at the door of the new regional mayor, making sure that he continues
00:49to deliver the fantastic work that Andy Street did in taking that train project forward,
00:54the train station project forward. And similarly, there's also proposals for the opening to
00:59Aldridge as well, I mean is that something that's going to be, will we be seeing any
01:03proposals in that area? Well on the new Aldridge, Brownhill station,
01:08so yes, my colleague Wendy Morton, who's the Conservative candidate here, has been
01:12championing that. That is absolutely on track, there was an announcement about that before
01:17the general election, which I know she warmly welcomed, so that actually is on track and
01:23should hit the timetable that's been set out. There's been a lot of calls for the area
01:27to the north of Wolverhampton, the only way up to Shrewsbury to be electrified, so that
01:31causes a lot of problems because it means you can't use electric trains for longer journeys
01:35going further south. That has been raised with your department about that, I mean what
01:41are your thoughts on that? So we've obviously electrified a lot of the rail network, one
01:46of the things we're looking at now are the parts that haven't been electrified and whether
01:50they should be. Also we're looking at whether it's more cost effective to look at the trains
01:54you run, because with battery technology, one of the things we're looking at introducing
01:58are trains that can actually run on electric power when there is electric power, but also
02:02have battery technology so that they can run on the batteries when not, and that's often
02:07more cost effective than electrifying rail, particularly if you have to start raising
02:13bridges and doing lots of big infrastructure work, so we're absolutely going to look at
02:17that and see which of those options make sense. So are we going to timescale when we might
02:22know more about that? I can't give you a timescale on that at the moment I'm afraid, that sort
02:26of work is something that we look at continuously about how you get best value for physical
02:31infrastructure and what services you can run on it, and that's the sort of work that the
02:35department does with the West Midlands Railway. So the technical station would sit on that
02:38Shrewsbury line and sort of take people up there? You don't need me to tell you about
02:43the rail to Suffolk and Potholes at the moment. Why has it become such a problem compared
02:50to how there weren't that many potholes about 15, 20 years ago? Why do we still have so
02:53many of them? Well look, I think one thing is that this particular year, which people
02:57have noticed, we have had particularly terrible weather, but look, we've recognised that there's
03:01an issue about the amount of money going to local road maintenance. It's one of the reasons
03:05when the Prime Minister and I made the decision last year to cancel the second phase of HS2,
03:11we took every penny of that to reinvest in transport. £8.3 billion of that across the
03:16country is going to be invested with local authorities on improving road maintenance.
03:21They've had the first chunk of that last financial year, second chunk this financial year, we've
03:25made them be transparent about what they're spending it on, so actually people locally
03:29will be able to go and have a look at what their council has spent already on that. Over
03:33the next 10 years, that amount of money will actually be transformational and will really
03:37improve road maintenance. It's not something that's been promised by the Labour Party.
03:40But given the timescale you've mentioned, wouldn't we be starting to see some sort of
03:45plans or some sort of improvement by now? Well you will. So we've told councils what
03:51money they're getting over the 10 years, we've already set out, they've already had the first
03:54instalment of cash last year, last financial year, they had the second instalment this
03:59financial year, so you will already see local authorities, people can go and look on their
04:03website and see what roads have been done last year, are being done this year already,
04:08and there's more money to come if the Conservative government is re-elected.
04:13So when would people start to see a door holder to get involved?
04:17Well I was going to say, people will be able to see, councils have road maintenance programmes
04:21already funded by central government, we've given them extra money, some of which has
04:25already happened, so people can go to councils' websites now and see specific roads which
04:30will have been done by that extra money, and as I said, over the next 10 years, there's
04:34a transformational amount of money coming if people elect a Conservative government.
04:38But it's also holding councils to account, so different councils are behaving very differently
04:42and performing better or worse, so Wolverhampton's roads are firmly under Labour council in Wolverhampton
04:49so there are questions there I think. So would you be in favour of a good council
04:53so people can jump in and pot out? Oh, I don't know because my focus is Wolverhampton,
04:57I think Walsall people have slightly fewer grumbles, but some are really innovating with
05:03modern technology to get hit squads, so you at least patch potholes really quickly, and
05:08I think that is a priority, it comes up on the doorstep, all politicians will say, if
05:12you get potholes right, people feel much better about their local area, so we need more innovation
05:19in Wolverhampton, so that, we've got some craters going on, Woden Avenue, Amos Lane,
05:24there's lots of hot spots there that people, repeatedly I've raised it with councils,
05:28it does take a long time to get that extra investment, people aren't seeing it yet.
05:33One of the things we specifically ask councils to do is to look at innovative ways of delivering
05:37the investment, part of the point about setting out a long term plan, with a growing amount
05:42of spending is councils can then look at capital investment in equipment, they can look at
05:47investing in and skilling up their workforce to actually be able to deliver this programme
05:52over time, and use that money most effectively, it's taxpayers money, it's not our money,
05:56and you want to make sure that that money is spent wisely, to get the best bang for
06:00the buck on the free roads, which of course are important, not just for drivers, important
06:04for those that use buses, the most popular form of public transport, to make sure they
06:09have a great road surface as well, and important for cyclists, motorcyclists and moped riders
06:14as well.
06:15Obviously you've just seen the tram, heavy tram, that's over there, it's been a long
06:18time coming this project, there's a tram being extended now going from Wensley through
06:23Dudley, and that will go from Dudley Hall station, but there's no intercity services
06:28on that station, they do go to Sandwell and Dudley, which is maybe two miles away, but
06:33obviously there's no argument for moving the intercity services to connect up with
06:36the trams at the same station.
06:38Well a couple of things, on the trams, we're very supportive of the tram projects, and
06:44of course that money's been funded from the regional mayor, but from the capital funding
06:49that's come from central government, and we put a lot of extra money into that in the
06:53regional budgets after that decision on HS2 last year, so that I think is something we
06:59very much support.
07:00Of course, when you've got the tram connectivity in place, we will of course look at arguments
07:06for rail services, and we would look at the sensible business case.
07:11The business case is stacked up in terms of the service having enough passengers to
07:16be profitable, and it didn't need huge amounts of capital investment of course, but that
07:21would be looked at if the train companies want to bring those business plans forward.
07:29OK, now your seats, I've been looking down the list of the marginal seats, under normal
07:34circumstances you'd be fairly confident of holding onto your seats, quite a majority
07:39of them, how confident do you feel given the current circumstances?
07:42Well I think I'm fighting for every vote, I think every politician does that, I still
07:47have to meet anyone that says, I really like Keir Starmer, I think people are really sceptical
07:53because there's a lack of plan, there's a lack of accountability, it's just always repeating
07:58the same, we saw it last night in the TV debates, which was she won, I thought the Prime Minister
08:04came out fighting, I have got reform is a challenge in this seat, I'm a member of the
08:11ERG, I'm a big Brexiteer, I'm on the right wing of the party, I hope people will realise
08:16that if you're in Clacton you can vote for Nigel Farage, if you're in Wolverhampton you're
08:20voting for Keir Starmer, so that's where I'm doing my battles on the doorstep.
08:27You might not be aware of the comments by your colleague Mark Lange, who said yesterday
08:33he says he's designed to, well he says it's like on July 4th there will be a Labour government
08:40and he has said that it's a matter of how big the Labour majority is and he's voting
08:48for a Labour landslide, do you think he's right?
08:51I think, I mean the polls are the polls, we're not sort of denying, we have a challenge
08:57at the moment, but I think locally a lot of my work, I was a councillor in Wolverhampton
09:02in opposition, I think I've held the council to account and that is my priority, I got
09:08elected as a locally focused politician and some of the calls I've made about saving Greenbelt
09:14in Wolverhampton when it was put in the housing plan, redesigning outdated projects like Westside,
09:20I think that's really important for local residents to know they can have a Conservative
09:24MP who will stand up to the council, but also I've got a hammered government for funding
09:29when they have good ideas, so I will work with anyone to make my constituency better
09:35but stand up when it matters and I stand up to government and the council for what's best
09:41for people in my patch.
09:42And Minister why would you say people should vote Conservative, what's your case for this?
09:47Well look it's very clear, it's because we do actually have a plan, Jane mentioned
09:50the debate last night, I think it was very clear, the Prime Minister answered the questions
09:55specifically with clear plans about how we were going to achieve things, when Keir Starmer
10:00was challenged on specifics, he couldn't answer them, he had platitudes, couldn't
10:05answer any specific questions, I think the audience spotted that and the other thing
10:09I think is it was also very clear and Keir Starmer took a very long time to deny this
10:14last night, or 12 times the other Tuesday didn't, there are clearly tax rises coming
10:19if people vote Labour, we've made some very conservative with a small fee assumptions
10:23about their spending plans, they've then gone through independent civil servants in
10:28the Treasury and we think that will cost an ordinary family £2,000 over the next parliament
10:33if Labour wins and I don't think of the challenges people have had on the cost of living but
10:37that's what they want, I've yet to find anyone that wants to vote for higher taxes
10:41so that's why I think we're absolutely in this to fight, the Prime Minister was
10:44absolutely on fighting form last night and I think you could see some of the arguments
10:48we've been making about Labour not having a plan, not having any ideas about how to
10:53solve any of the problems or the challenges in the world today, I think we've been
10:57startling I suppose on that debate stage.