POTHOLES ON ROAD TO POWER
ROB FERGUSON, 30, sales director living in Minster, Kent, engaged to be married: How will you make it easier for motorists to charge electric cars?
CONSERVATIVE: The Conservatives are the party of drivers with a strong track record of making their lives easier, in contrast to Wales where the Labour Government is trying to turf motorists off the roads.
We’re delivering our plan to speed up the roll-out of public charge points. Last year they increased by 49 per cent, driven by the private sector.
We’re also investing to help sort more challenging areas, like some motorway service stations, and home charging for people without their own parking.
LABOUR:
One of the biggest barriers to making the switch to an electric vehicle is the lack of public charging points.
There are more in the City ofwestminster than the 12 biggest northern towns and cities combined.
Labour is on the side of drivers and will fast track the roll-out of public charging points by setting new, binding targets on local authorities and targeting funding in the areas with poor coverage.
CLAIRE FAYERS, 56, a married children’s author living in Abergavenny:
Do you have a plan for ending the long-running campaign of rail strikes?
CONSERVATIVE: Since I became Transport Secretary I have overseen deals with all rail unions except the most militant train drivers’ union Aslef, whose boss Mick Whelan sits on Labour’s National Executive Committee.aslef won’t give their members a say on a pay rise that would take their average salaries up to £65,000, while Labour would give Aslef an even greater ability to disrupt the railways.
LABOUR: Labour has set out a detailed plan for our railways which will reset industrial relations. Unlike the Tories – who have not been at the negotiating table for 18 months – we will not shy away fr o m t he tough negotiations needed to deliver a railway that works for passengers, taxpayers and respects railway workers.
Transport is the issue that stops Britain in its tracks. Delivering an affordable and reliable train service no longer plagued by strikes will be a priority for whichever party forms the next government.
Drivers will need access to charging points as the country switches to electric vehicles – but millions of them are waiting on their council to sort out local potholes.
Labour enraged voters in Wales with the blanket roll-out of 20mph zones, and Rishi Sunak is living with the legacy of cancelling
RICHARD JACK, 45, a psychologist living in Newcastle, married with one son:
How will you improve rail capacity between London and the North now the second leg of HS2 has been axed?
CONSERVATIVE: Cancelling Phase 2 means we’re able to fund new connections between the major cities of the North and Midlands through Northern Powerhouse Rail and Midlands Rail Hub.
We are looking at options to increase capacity north of Birmingham, using £500million of reallocated HS2 funding. And we are delivering HS2 between London and the West Midlands, offering faster services and nearly doubling capacity. the extension of HS2. Today, Transport Secretary Mark Harper and his Labour opposite number Louise Haigh answer your questions, covering everything from dirty trains to the return of public ownership of the railways.
In the coming months we will continue to put Conservative ministers and their Labour shadows on the spot on the biggest questions facing the country. A historic election looms and the voice of Sunday Express readers will be at the heart of it.
LABOUR: Rather than shutting mayors and local leaders out like the Tories have done, Labour will work with our mayors, businesses, unions, and industry experts to deliver a credible and transformative plan for rail infrastructure that the North and the Midlands need to grow.
MATTHEW RYAN, 44, university manager living in London, married with two sons:
What more can be done in the transport sector to improve air quality in our towns and cities – and do you plan to extend or curtail the use of Ultra Low Emission Zones in major cities?
CONSERVATIVE: Air quality in the UK has improved significantly in recent decades.we can still do more, with zero-emission cars, vans and buses ensuring pollution will keep falling. That’s how I want to reduce air pollution, not unfair taxes on the poorest motorists like Sadiq Khan’s Ulez expansion.
LABOUR: Labour has no plans to extend Ultra Low Emission Zones. Improved public transport in our towns and cities will be a gamechanger for air quality. This will also relieve congestion on our roads.
Poor performance is unacceptable so we continue to hold train operators to account for matters in their control
MARK HARPER Conservative
MATT CRESWELL, 45, a teacher in London, married with one son and one daughter: What are your plans to make it easier to travel from east to west of England?
CONSERVATIVE: Thanks to reallocated HS2 funding, we’re able to extend the £2 bus fare cap, improve local roads across the country as well as boost rail connectivity across the North from Liverpool to Hull.
Separately, we’re delivering Eastwest Rail earlier than planned – a new line to better connect Oxford and Cambridge.
LABOUR: Labour will work with mayors to build Northern Powerhouse Rail efficiently and within our fiscal rules.this will improve connectivity east to west across the North of England, which is an enormous priority after the Conservatives took a wrecking ball to HS2, having allowed costs to spiral and wasting taxpayers’ money.
EDWARD SCHULDT, 77, retired and living in London, married with one son, two daughters, and eight grandchildren: Will you extend or halt the roll-out of 20mph zones?
CONSERVATIVE: I’d halt them – at least where they don’t work. 20mph limits are sensible outside schools or on quiet residential streets – but as Labour in Wales has shown, they make no sense as blanket measures. Our Plan for Drivers has issued updated guidance to councils so 20mph limits are only used in sensible places.
LABOUR: It should be up to local communities to decide the speed limits on their local roads, not politicians in Westminster. 20mph limits are welcome in certain areas like around schools, but those decisions should be made locally.
SARAH BRACKWELL, 45, a disability access consultant living in London with her partner:
Why do other European countries have clean, fast, affordable trains, while ours are expensive, dirty and unreliable?
CONSERVATIVE: We continue to hold train operators to account for matters in their control. A number of these problems, however, are caused by outdated working practices such as train drivers not having to work Sundays, so we’re working to reform our railways to benefit passengers. This is one of many things Labour’s unfunded nationalisation plans won’t achieve as their union paymasters won’t allow it.
LABOUR: Public ownership plays a key role in affordable, reliable, quality rail services across Europe. The Conservatives haven’t lifted a finger to fix our broken railways. Labour’s plans will get our railways back on track – driving up standards for passengers and bringing down costs for taxpayers with publicly owned Great British Railways.
JULIE FOSTER, retired college lecturer from Burnley, married with one son, one daughter and four grandchildren: What is your plan to improve our roads and fix potholes – and will it involve road charging?
CONSERVATIVE: Thanks to £8.3billion of reallocated HS2 funding, we are investing the biggest ever funding boost for roads resurfacing and pothole repairs, enough to resurface more than 5,000 miles of road.
The first £150million has already been paid to local councils, with the next £150million coming shortly, without road charging. Labour haven’t got a plan here at all – and won’t even promise to match our spending commitments.
LABOUR: There are no plans for road charging. Under the Tories the pothole backlog has risen to an eye-watering £16.3billion – a black hole that would take a decade to fix.
Labour is on the side of drivers. We will crack down on unfair car insurance costs, remove planning barriers so road upgrades are delivered quicker and cheaper, reduce the traffic clogging up our roads with better public transport, and boost the electric vehicle charge point roll-out.
ALISON BRAGG, 51, from Workington, home-educating mother of three sons and three daughters:
What will you do to restore rural bus services?
CONSERVATIVE: We know buses are vital for people in rural areas, which is why we have invested more than £3.5billion on services since 2020, with reallocated HS2 funding providing an extra £1billion for the North and Midlands.
We have also extended the £2 fare cap to December 31, which has helped drop fares by 11 per cent in rural and non-metropolitan areas, also made possible by reallocated HS2 funding.
LABOUR: Labour will fix our broken bus system by giving power and control of bus services to the communities who depend on them – including rural communities. Labour’s plan will save and create up to 1,300 vital bus routes and enable 250 million more passenger journeys every single year.
JOHN KANE, 45, from Trowbridge, local government worker, father of three daughters and one son:
What will you do to bring down the spiralling cost of rail tickets?
CONSERVATIVE: We intervened to cap this year’s rail fare increase at 4.9 per cent, well below the 8.7 per cent rise seen in Scotland under the Scottish National Party.
A number of railcards are also available which can save the average user £140 a year. It’s why we’re looking to reform the railway, including making the workforce more flexible which could save £1.5billion a year, helping limit future rises.
LABOUR: Labour will simplify fares and ticketing to ensure passengers always get the best deal – and we will roll out innovations like digital season tickets and automatic repay across the entire network.
ANDREWWALSH, 41, from Cambridge, solicitor, married with
two daughters:
Will the railways be renationalised one day?
It should be up to local communities to decide speed limits on their local roads
LOUISE HAIGH Labour
CONSERVATIVE: This has long been the ambition of the rail union barons and hard-left Corbynites. It would mean that buying up the trains at a cost of at least £15billion and would see rail competing for funding with other public services like the NHS. When the railways were previously in public ownership, British Rail was starved of investment and withered until privatisation brought in much needed investment.
LABOUR: We expect to complete the transition to public ownership in the first term of a Labour government, by folding existing private passenger rail contracts into Great British Railways as they expire, without the taxpayer paying a penny in compensation costs.
While the Conservatives are content to let Britain’s broken railways fail passengers, Labour will deliver root and branch reform.