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Tag: Chris Loder

  • Chris Loder – 2022 Speech on Levelling Up Rural Britain

    Chris Loder – 2022 Speech on Levelling Up Rural Britain

    The speech made by Chris Loder, the Conservative MP for West Dorset, in the House of Commons on 9 November 2022.

    It is a pleasure to follow my constituency neighbours, my hon. Friends the Members for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) and for South Dorset (Richard Drax). I hope that the House will allow me to make some comments, although I am at risk of repeating what they said. I congratulate and thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby), whose quest to hold this important debate we all thoroughly backed.

    It is clear to me that this House does not give enough time to debate and discuss the rural issues of the day. We have some important questions to ask ourselves. Why is levelling up not focused on rural areas in the same way it is on urban areas? Why does rural hardship not seem to matter in the same way as urban poverty? Why do rural jobs attract less pay than those in urban areas? Why does Transport for London get £1.7 billion of Government money to bail it out yet Dorset Council gets hardly anything—especially when we have the worst frequency rail line in the country? I just wanted to let the Minister know that.

    I do not want the Treasury Green Book to prioritise rural areas; I want it to be fair to all parts of the United Kingdom, including rural Dorset. Why do sixth-formers— 16 and 17-year-olds—in rural Dorset have to pay to get on the school bus, when those youngsters do not have to do so in urban areas? In certain pockets of West Dorset and, indeed, the wider Dorset area, social mobility is among the worst in the country. The real levelling up required in this country is in rural Britain, which is why I am so delighted to contribute to the debate.

    My hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset clearly articulated some good statistics. I also have them in my speech—he has pinched them—but let me focus on a couple. It is totally unacceptable to me and my constituents —and, I think, to my constituency neighbours—that we have one of the highest council taxes in the country but zero revenue support grant, yet in places such as inner London there are boroughs with the lowest council tax in the country that receive some £24 million in revenue support grant.

    Simon Hoare

    Does my hon. Friend agree that we also have hanging over us the spectre of negative revenue support grant, whereby the Government might actually tell Dorset Council that it needs to pay some money back? Where that money would come from I have no idea. Does he agree that that would just add, for want of a better phrase, insult to injury?

    Chris Loder

    I wholly agree with my hon. Friend and want to relay that message to the Minister as well: I hope we do not get into the territory of negative RSG as there would be mass rebellions from the Dorset MPs if that were the case.

    Covid was hugely damaging to the economy of West Dorset; we are not starting from a level playing field. I lost 18% of my businesses in West Dorset during the covid period: some 1,200 businesses shut. So we are already starting from a lower place, but it is very difficult to make the case on this because it feels as though we are always starting from behind the line.

    My hon. Friends and constituency neighbours have talked about adult social care and I want to reiterate the point. Dorset County Hospital, in Dorchester in my constituency, is very challenged: to put the problem into perspective, the number of patients discharged into social care, at the expense of the council, has risen threefold over the last three years. The situation with police funding, fire funding and other areas is equally difficult, yet it is still hard to get any real understanding of that from the Government.

    Huge reform is required in housing in rural areas. My hon. Friend the Member for North Devon articulated very well in her speech some of the difficulties she faces with second homes and properties set aside often for full-time Airbnb lettings, and that has caused enormous difficulty in parts of West Dorset, too. Visitors could walk through some villages on a winter evening and almost think they are in a ghost town because so few properties are occupied. We cannot go on in that way and expect doctors, nurses, teachers and police officers to be able to live and work in the community.

    We have gone on for too long without real action and progress in this area. Parts of rural Britain are being held economically hostage by unfair bureaucracies, and not just Government Departments. I have mentioned the Treasury Green Book and fairness between rural Britain and urban areas in the assessment of infrastructure investment, but I could also mention the Environment Agency, the Rural Payments Agency—I could keep going. Rural Britain finds the level of bureaucracy very difficult. That constrains our ability to make real economic progress and contribute to the wider economic growth of the country. I ask the Minister to take due note of that.

    I understand that at next week’s Prime Minister’s questions I will have the opportunity to speak to the Prime Minister, and I tell the Minister in advance that I will ask the Prime Minister to set up a rural taskforce so that we do not need to continually share, in debates of this nature, the difficulties that we face. I want rural Britain to get turbocharged and to lead the way. We are very fortunate in rural Britain today: some of the most entrepreneurial, creative, innovative solutions are found in this country’s rural areas. We need those solutions to help the wider country—indeed, some urban areas would do well to take them.

    In addition to the rural taskforce that I will ask the Prime Minister to set up, the suggestion from my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset that there should be a rural tsar is well made. I hope the Minister will consider those points in winding up the debate.

  • Chris Loder – 2022 Comments on Rishi Sunak Becoming Prime Minister

    Chris Loder – 2022 Comments on Rishi Sunak Becoming Prime Minister

    The comments made by Chris Loder, the Conservative MP for West Dorset, on Twitter on 22 October 2022.

    This week, West Dorset people have made it clear to me that political and economical stability is the most important priority for me as their MP in my decision for the next Conservative Leader. It is clear to me that the person best placed to do this is Rishi Sunak and I am very pleased to support him with my vote on Monday.

  • Chris Loder – 2022 Tribute to HM Queen Elizabeth II

    Chris Loder – 2022 Tribute to HM Queen Elizabeth II

    The tribute made by Chris Loder, the Conservative MP for West Dorset, in the House of Commons on 9 September 2022.

    I rise to speak on behalf of my constituents in West Dorset to pay tribute to our late Queen, whom we have loved and admired for our entire lives, to share in the deepest sorrow of the nation and to send our deepest sympathy to King Charles and the royal family. Queen Elizabeth was one of the few constants in our transitory life. The past 24 hours have truly brought home to us not only the life and service of our Queen but our own service to our community and nation.

    Queen Elizabeth was a woman of great kindness and faith, incredible inspiration and steadfast leadership, and was a family role model for all of us. The Queen was of my grandparents’ generation, whose sense of selfless service and duty, particularly during times of difficulty, has allowed us to lead the lives of freedom and democracy that we enjoy today. Her late Majesty’s generation is one of selflessness, not of entitlement. Her generation is one of tenacity, of character and of wisdom that we must look to continue in our own lives.

    Since my own grandparents passed away, I, like so many, have looked upon our Queen as the grandmother of the nation. That is why the loss that we feel is so sad and so difficult to describe. I am not able to put it better than Martin Lee, the rector of Sherborne, who said this morning:

    “Our country has been held in her hands. With gentleness and firmness, she has never let go, always putting the needs of the nation before herself.”

    In West Dorset, we have the fondest memories of many occasions that the late Queen Elizabeth visited us—first, in 1952, in our county town of Dorchester. The Queen visited my home town of Sherborne twice: once in 1998 when she unveiled the great west window at Sherborne Abbey, and again as part of her diamond jubilee tour in 2012. She returned to Dorchester in 2016 to open Queen Mother Square in Poundbury. Those fond memories have endured with us for many years and will continue to do so.

    We, the people of West Dorset and the citizens of the United Kingdom mourn our Queen, but our new King and his family are mourning his mother. It is therefore with profound affection and the greatest sympathy from West Dorset that I wish His Majesty the King to know that he, the royal family and the late Queen Elizabeth remain steadfastly in our thoughts and prayers at this very sad time. God save the King.

  • Chris Loder – 2022 Speech on Transport

    Chris Loder – 2022 Speech on Transport

    The speech made by Chris Loder, the Conservative MP for West Dorset, in the House of Commons on 19 May 2022.

    Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for calling me to speak in this debate; it is a pleasure to contribute and to follow the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney). I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests: I worked for the railways for a long time before being elected to this House.

    I am proud of the Government’s ambition and determination to level up across the UK. I am also proud of the Bills in the Queen’s Speech, particularly the transport Bill, but if I may, I will focus today on railways, buses and roads.

    The Great British Railways proposal is good for the United Kingdom—the whole of the United Kingdom. I am particularly pleased about it because the current model has probably reached the end of its life. The results from that model have been good—we have seen passenger numbers increase 100% since privatisation began—but the Government fully understand that things need to change.

    I draw the Government’s attention to some initiatives that could provide further opportunities within the GBR proposal. In Japan, for example, the relationship between real estate and funding for railway operations is very close, to the extent that Government investment is often not required. That is because of the model that is adopted. I urge the Minister and her officials to look into that.

    Enormous amounts of money are invested in transport, but it is important that we do not get carried away with the number of billions that will be spent. We need to be more concerned about the specific outputs than the amount of money that will be spent. We see billions going to Highways England—I think the Chair of the Transport Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman), said that it was £27.4 billion—yet there is consultation after consultation for years and years before any spades actually go into the ground.

    It is the same in the railways, particularly in relation to the rail network enhancement plan, which has been a long time coming. We have seen some really good announcements for the midlands and the north—the integrated rail plan is bringing in £96 billion there—but regrettably we have seen nothing yet in the south-west. Even worse, when Network Rail announced that it was going to invest in re-signalling to enable more capacity and flexibility, the schemes were deferred at the end of the last control period with no hope in sight of the most basic re-signalling programmes.

    We talk a lot in this House about tens of billions of pounds. The Opposition want more than £96 billion, forgetting that we pay £82 billion a year in interest. However, we must remember other parts of the country, particularly the rural parts and specifically the south-west—the local challenges in Dorset and Somerset have been immense. I am grateful for the Minister’s support for returning the frequency of trains and the direct services on the Waterloo-Exeter line and the Waterloo-Dorchester-Weymouth line, which came into effect with the last timetable.

    GB Railfreight, of which Parliament should be incredibly proud, is taking important steps to decarbonise the railway’s freight sector. It recently introduced a first Class 99 hybrid locomotive that will eventually succeed the diesel-power Class 66. It will go a long way to decarbonising the freight network and we have much to learn from it.

    The help that we give transport and railways in Ukraine is not often spoken about in the House. We take great pride in what our nation has done in past decades to help those escaping tyranny by train. Although we are not a neighbouring country to Ukraine, I urge the Government to participate in and actively support initiatives such as ALLRAIL, a group of European train operators that run up to the Polish-Ukrainian border and have brought people out of Ukraine and taken them across Europe. It would be a wonderful statement by the Government, on top of all the wonderful work that they have done so far, to participate in such an initiative. I encourage the Minister to consider that.

    The bus service improvement plan has been quite painful for Dorset. I fully recognise that it has been good for the country in many ways, but Dorset and many other rural areas have not been successful. It is important that the Government consider what can be done to support rural areas, not necessarily with financial bungs but with tangible initiatives. That would be very much appreciated.

  • Chris Loder – 2022 Speech on Achieving Economic Growth

    Chris Loder – 2022 Speech on Achieving Economic Growth

    The speech made by Chris Loder, the Conservative MP for West Dorset, in the House of Commons on 18 May 2022.

    It is a pleasure to contribute to this debate this afternoon and to follow the hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Kim Leadbeater). I will reserve my comments on achieving economic growth to the rural areas of the United Kingdom. I particularly advocate for my constituency of West Dorset.

    The Queen’s Speech contained a number of welcome Bills, including the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, the transport Bill, the Procurement Bill and, importantly, the Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill.

    West Dorset is a very rural constituency, covering 400 square miles. Thirty per cent. of the population is over 65 and one in 12 is over 80. Eighty-five per cent. of all our funding comes from local taxation, and two thirds of our council tax goes to support those needing social care. It is constituencies such as mine that have a really strong requirement for regeneration and levelling up in a way that sometimes this House does not quite recognise. The default view of West Dorset is that it is a particularly well-off place, but I can tell the House that many parts are far from it. West Dorset is in as much need as anywhere of levelling up, especially as we are one of the few authorities to have zero revenue support grant, despite having one of the highest council tax rates in the country.

    I am particularly pleased that my right hon. Friend the Minister for Brexit Opportunities is on the Treasury Bench this afternoon. I was delighted to welcome him to West Dorset just a few weeks ago to talk about some of the challenges and difficulties we face. In West Dorset, 97% of our businesses are small or micro-sized. The pandemic was very harsh to us: 6,500 very small businesses existed before the pandemic; 5,500 are there now. So I was delighted to learn from my right hon. Friend that the procurement Bill will help those very small and micro-sized businesses to tap into the procurement system. For far too long, those businesses have been held back from accessing that system because of bureaucracy or European rules and legislation. Such things as approved suppliers lists will, I understand, be reviewed. I think that will mean an enormous amount to constituencies such as mine, with such a high proportion of small and micro-sized businesses.

    Many in this House know that, for 20 years before I was elected in 2019, I worked for the railways. That is one of the reasons I am delighted to see the transport Bill feature in the Queen’s Speech. Bus and rail services have also been a contentious matter in West Dorset. I have the worst frequency rail line in the country—a three-hourly train frequency—that many often do not recognise. Inter-regional rail connectivity is also very poor, which is another reason I am delighted that we will have a transport Bill that will reform the railways and bring lots of opportunity and in particular take full advantage of regional connectivity, meaning that, where we see franchise boundaries precluding sensible cross-regional connectivity measures, we will have the opportunity to fully review those.

    West Dorset is a very agricultural area as well. Agriculture plays an enormous part in the local economy. For that reason, and as a farmer’s son, I am delighted to see that the Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill will be coming back in this parliamentary Session. It contains a lot of important measures that I would have liked us to have dealt with before, but I am pleased that it is to come back. Animal worrying is a considerable problem for our sheep farmers in and around West Dorset, and the Bill will put the responsibility on dog owners to keep their dogs under control. I hope that, during our debates on the Bill, we will also discuss the unnecessary non-stun slaughter of animals for supply chain purposes.

    I am delighted to be able to support the Queen’s Speech. I am pleased that my right hon. Friend the Minister for Brexit Opportunities is present to hear my points and to reiterate the conversation we had when he visited West Dorset. I commend the Queen’s Speech to the House.

  • Chris Loder – 2022 Speech on the Future of Rail

    Chris Loder – 2022 Speech on the Future of Rail

    The speech made by Chris Loder, the Conservative MP for West Dorset, in Westminster Hall on 26 April 2022.

    Thank you for calling me, Sir Charles. Well, with three minutes I will just get to the point, if I may.

    I appreciate the comments of the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq). I should just say that the RMT does not quite agree with her about the London Mayor. I respectfully make that point, because the RMT has itself said that it is the London Mayor who is causing the logjam, and ultimately that has a considerable impact on the finances available. I represent a constituency that I am afraid has a three-hourly train service frequency, and when I see Transport for London getting such considerable amounts of money, it is a matter of great concern to me. That is money going to support the good people of London, rather than to support the Heart of Wessex line. I know that my hon. Friend the Minister is well aware of my strong views on that point.

    I will move on to the future of rail. I spent 20 years working for the railways before being elected to Parliament. I am not sure whether there are any Opposition Members present who used to be members of the RMT. I was once a member and should give it a big shout-out for its policy briefing, which was very interesting and for which I am grateful. The railways are very important for the future of this country. I appreciate that lots of people have strong views on where the new GB Railways HQ should be, although personally I do not think that will make much of a difference to the future capability of the railway; what will make an enormous difference is where the Government look to invest. The Government have supported the railway to the tune of £14 billion during the worst time of the pandemic. They have kept thousands of people in jobs, and they have done so to ensure that the future of our railways is extremely good and supports the future of our country.

    It is really important that we also consider the wider things that the railways have to change going forward. The railways have been marvellous in lots of ways, but the fact that it can take 12 months to change a timetable is not acceptable in the current day and age. Why is it that we have a timetable that is the same on a Monday as it is on a Friday, when we know that the demands are very different? There are fundamental changes that need to happen in order for our railways to excel.

    I am conscious of time and am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate. As a final point, it is really important that we remember it is not all about the cities; it is about connecting the rural areas as well—areas such as West Dorset and other parts of the country that would greatly benefit from that in the future.

  • Chris Loder – 2020 Speech on the Coronavirus Bill

    Below is the text of the speech made by Chris Loder, the Conservative MP for West Dorset, in the House of Commons on 23 March 2020.

    On Saturday, we had our first death from coronavirus in West Dorset at our county hospital. However, while a fellow citizen was dying from this awful virus in hospital, others were congregating all along the Jurassic coast, particularly in Lyme Regis and Bridport, sharing ice creams on the beach as if it were a summer Saturday afternoon, showing flagrant disregard for the Government’s advice. This country is not on holiday; it is time to wake up and take this seriously. We need to minimise the transmission of this highly contagious virus, because with 38% of the population in West Dorset older than 60, the risk is considerable. Whatever is asked of us, we must follow the Government’s advice

    Right now, we in West Dorset urgently need two things. I appreciate very much indeed what the Chancellor has done so far to support people’s incomes, and I commend all the Ministers here today for their work, but 24% of those in work in West Dorset are self-employed, and at the moment we are not doing enough to help them. I urge Ministers to expedite measures to support our self-employed workforce.​

    On Friday, our local bus operator gave 48 hours’ notice that it was stopping vital bus links into our second town. Those buses have now stopped operating. They are connections that are desperately needed to get to Bridport Community Hospital. I urge colleagues and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport to consider what help we can give local buses in rural parts of the country. This will be an issue not just for my constituency but for the entire country.

    I support the Bill. It covers many of the measures that are necessary in this national emergency. This past weekend, people were still ignoring reasonable advice to observe social distancing, so the Bill has to contain measures that enable the Government to ban gatherings and to go still further if necessary, however uncomfortable that may be. It allows our recently retired healthcare heroes to return to the frontline, and it puts into law the Chancellor’s welcome statements on statutory sick pay. As the Member for one of the most at-risk areas in the country, with the eighth highest proportion of over 65s in the United Kingdom, I am pleased that the Government are taking this approach, but we must do more for the self-employed. They are the backbone of the economy, and while I welcome announcements regarding the minimum income floor, we need to sort that out.

    The United Kingdom is facing a pandemic the like of which none of us has seen in our lifetime. We need only look at Spain and Italy for an insight into the challenges that we are going to face. I pay tribute to the chief medical officer and the chief scientific adviser, both of whom are playing crucial roles in tackling this virus. I commend the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and other Ministers for their leadership at this incredibly difficult time. Our response to the coronavirus will prepare this country like never before. I have only this left to say: to those on the NHS frontline, thank you, and to the volunteers in West Dorset and across the country, thank you.