Seamus Logan

It is a pleasure to serve under you, Mr Turner; I thank you for keeping the best wine to the end. I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard (Alex Mayer) on her excellent speech. Would I be right in saying that Toddington services is in her constituency? If not, it is very close. It is a place I am very familiar with, as I will explain in a moment. Maynes Coaches in my constituency represents one of the many hundreds of family-owned and run coach companies up and down these islands. I must declare a non-financial interest because my mother and father founded a coach company more than 50 years ago. Along with my brothers Liam, Sean and Enda and my sister Una, I was part of a ready-made, non-unionised labour force that my parents ruthlessly exploited, but that is all part of history now. Coaches connect our rural communities, transport pupils to school, provide resilience when rail services fail and ensure that major cultural and sporting events run smoothly and can take place successfully. Additionally, coaches play a very important role in the tourism sector. For those who do not drive or for those who take coach tours, for example, coaches can be the only transport option to many world-class tourism facilities. In fact, they are the bees that pollinate all those places. For example, research has highlighted that one coach calling at the same location every day each year can introduce at least £1 million to the local economy. Although much responsibility for transport is devolved to the Scottish Parliament, I want to focus on issues that are in the remit of the UK Government, as opposed to some colleagues who wasted valuable time in their speeches speaking about matters that are devolved to Holyrood.