Joe Robertson

I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, in that I am a serving Isle of Wight councillor. I want to speak to new clause 48 in my name and new clause 39 in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage). The two new clauses seek to do similar things. I thank Members across the House who have signed new clause 48, not only Opposition Members but those on the Government Benches, as well as from the Liberal Democrats and the Greens. It is my position that this support shows that new clause 48 is an objectively reasonable amendment to seek. It is about the principle of fairness: it ensures that the ferry services that connect communities all over this country of islands connect those islands, and the communities that live close to bodies of water, including rivers, under the same fare framework that trains and buses operate under. New clause 48 sits in the following context: for generations, for decades, there has been a political consensus that train operators, whether they be state providers or private businesses, operate under a framework of regulation and licensing, and that Government have a say in how train fares and timetables are structured. The same goes for bus services. Indeed, even trains and buses in the private sector have, to a greater or lesser extent, been subsidised by the public purse. Ferry providers in this country sit outside that consensus of regulation and licensing in public transport, so there is no comprehensive regulation that sets down how ferry operators may work. That has led to my constituents on the Isle of Wight relying on privatised, unregulated, unlicensed, foreign-owned, debt-laden companies for essential travel. Those companies are so profitable that they are regularly exchanged from private equity group to private equity group, including the Canadian pension fund. That is because private equity understands that it is a predictable form of income generation, as the service users—Isle of Wight residents—have no alternative but to use the ferry companies they control. There is no effective market, as the private sector operates properly only when there is competition. However, the bar to entry into the ferry services market is so high—a company would need to buy land and ferries, and ensure compliance with all maritime law—that there is no alternative to the existing providers. I use my constituency as an example. One provider, now called Wightlink, used to be part of British Rail, when British Rail was a public service; the provider was unfortunately sold off without any obligation on it, and it is private equity investment that has benefited from that.