Usually, this column covers the week before the one it is printed, in this case up to Sunday 11 February but as the Prime Minister visited us on Monday 12 February, I have included that this week.
It was great to see Newton Aycliffe chosen as the first venue for the public engagement sessions that the Prime Minister is having. Stephen Dixon a northerner and a journalist who hosts the breakfast show on GB News, hosted the 'GBN People's Forum: The Prime Minister ', in front of a live audience. The Forum was advertised, via GB News, as being “at a venue near Darlington at 8:00pm on Monday 12th February” and applicants needed to complete a form online to be able to attend the event. The event was broadcast live on the GB News Channel and it was fantastic that it took place at the Big Club in Newton Aycliffe. The Prime Minister had great engagement with the forum of representatives from across the UK. It was a lively session with some difficult questions, and I am sure the Prime Minister was pleased with the exit poll from the audience of 100 participants - in that 50 would vote Conservative, 36 undecided and only 14 would vote against him.
Prior to Monday’s forum, my week to 11 February was spent in Japan with the Transport Select Committee. This is the cross-party committee whose role is to scrutinise the Department for Transport and suggest areas of focus. The travelling group was five Conservative, three Labour and one Scottish National Party. The journey out took 25 hours, starting on Saturday and arriving in Tokyo on Sunday.
On the Monday we were briefed by His Majesty’s Ambassador, Julia Longbottom and her team before transferring to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building where we met with members of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and also saw some displays from the Olympic and Paralympics. Tuesday’s meetings were with Nippon Yuen Kaisha a major shipping company where we heard about their approach to reducing carbon and Japanese use of domestic shipping. Then it was off to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport to hear their approach to transport and economic development and their consideration of social outcomes. We then went to the offices of Nissan where the discussion focused on electric vehicles as well as autonomous vehicle development and policy. Then it was back to the British Embassy to meet various stakeholders in Japanese transport.
Wednesday, we went to Tokyo Railway Station, the busiest in the world, to see the control centre and understand the scale of operations. Around 2.7m people use the station every day. We also heard about the Shinkansen (or Bullet Trains). Everyone knows about the speed of these but what is less appreciated is that there are over 300 trains, one leaves the station every five minutes and each one holds around 1300 people. We then travelled on one of them to Osaka where we met with Hankyu Railway Corporation and Carolyn Davidson the Consular General. The discussions were around the integration of transport and infrastructure investment.
Thursday, we met with the Osaka Government before getting back on a Shinkansen to return to Tokyo, there we met with Hitachi to hear about their ethos and approach to transport investment, they certainly live up to their tag phrase of “Inspire the Future.” In my opinion, theirs was the most impressive of all the presentations we received. After this we met with the MPs from the Japanese Transport Committee. Later that evening I was then able to have another meeting with Hitachi, where our Chair of the Select Committee accompanied me.
Friday saw us at Haneda Innovation City where we saw various innovations including autonomous buses. With visits completed it was off to the airport for a 21-hour return trip to Newcastle. A very busy but worthwhile week with many many learnings for the Transport Select Committee.
The rest of week commencing 12 February will see another couple of Ministerial visits and lots of constituency work, hopefully I will see many of you and as always if I can help call Aycliffe 790580 or email Paul.Howell.MP@Parliament.UK