Speeches by Smith.

“The Secretary of State claims that decisions reflect local identities. Well, I can advise him that the majority of my constituents and those living in rural Devon would highly disagree. Instead, we have an urban Labour stitch-up that ignores the plethora of rural voices who oppose Plymouth and Exeter’s land-grab plans …”

“I thank the Minister for his answer. He and I have had several interactions over the marine autonomy sector in particular, and I welcome the regulating for growth Bill, as I have said before in this place. However, I am incredibly keen to be reassured that it is coming early in the autumn. Will the Minister help me to …”

“4. What steps she is taking to support the maritime sector.”

“The right hon. Member has highlighted that, in his view, this is not a binary choice between a debate on the middle east and holding the new Prime Minister to account. I wonder whether I might therefore offer him a solution. Why do we not have the debate tomorrow—it is clearly important, and no one on this side of the …”

“That is entirely fair enough, unless a new town is already being built and then they are changing the goalposts along the way. New towns take 20 years, so we are—”

“I will leave that with you; it will come up later, but I think that is important.”

“Just pushing on local delivery a bit more, it feels like there are lots of moving parts in Government at the moment, and that is understating it—I am talking specifically about transport, so let us ignore everything else. I appreciate that I come across as quite cynical, but that is because I have sat on these committe…”

“Going backwards a little, I was on the Railways Bill Committee and the buses Bill Committee, and I know you faced a bit of challenge, particularly in the Railways Bill, about the fact that the strategy came after the legislation. Conrad, you have explained that you have done all this connecting up, but it felt very bac…”

“We are talking about the integration of all modes, though, aren’t we? What we found in the Railways Bill is that we did not get to talk about that integration, because the strategy was not there. Time and time again we hit a point where we could not get the answers that we wanted from Ministers because the strategy was…”

“Exactly. Devolution and LGR are going to have a massive impact. They are trying to deliver better in the city centre, but they could well be taking on rural villages that are going to be expecting integrated transport based on this strategy.”

“Some of the responses we have heard to the strategy have flagged that it does not contain a fully thought-out approach to integrating shared mobility, such as car clubs, micromobility, and park-and-ride services, with the wider transport network. Can you tell us what role you see these services having in an integrated …”

“Championing data and technology is one of the strategy’s main aims. At our most recent evidence session, witnesses noted the absence of autonomous vehicles in the strategy. What will their place be in an integrated system?”

“In a hypothetical-ish scenario, with changing local government, you potentially have a railway station that needs to expand its services near where there was going to be a park-and-ride in a new town that is now no longer going to be delivered. How do you judge local authorities on that? There is a new town in my const…”

“Just going back to the point about the mayoralties versus everybody else, I get the mayoralty piece, and that is great—it is going to work really well—but everywhere else is on a timeline of however many years until that gets delivered. Devon did not want a mayoralty, because of transport issues, which now means we are…”

“The strategy applies only to transport in England. How are you working with the devolved Governments to ensure that the UK has a nationally integrated transport network? For example, how will you ensure that cross-border journeys between England and Scotland or Wales will be integrated as well?”

“That does not answer my question. Does somebody want to answer the timetable piece and how we make sure that everybody keeps up? We talked about buses again, but it is about—”

“Which is not finalised because devolution has not happened yet.”

“Is the Department going to essentially walk this walk with different parts of the country as they go through it, or is it just a sort of, “Off you go. We are going to push you off from the riverbank, and you just have to paddle your canoe until you make it”?”

“That is a helpful example.”

“Does my right hon. Friend recognise that the group of people who often get forgotten in these debates—certainly by Government Members—are business owners? They are trying to hang on to these young people, or even to their normal employees, and they want to do the right thing so they pay them before themselves, but ofte…”