Congratulations to Martin Dean on his appointment as the new President of the Confederation of Passenger Transport (CPT).
I thought his speech at last week CPT annual dinner was thoughtful, and we can safely say that the presidency is in very safe hands.
It was a shame that the new minister, Nusrat Ghani, did not attend having apparently initially said she would. I was initially told she pulled out citing “personal reasons”, but Martin Dean told us she had other government business.
Oh dear. I can’t help feeling that she pulled out because she got stage fright, and didn’t fancy making her maiden ministerial speech to the massed ranks of the bus industry. To be fair, she has only been a minister for a couple of weeks so maybe she just felt she needed more time to get fully briefed on bus policy issues.
We did have a short video from her. She came across quite well and I’m told that so far she has made a good impression within the Department for Transport, is informal and easy to deal with. Either way, it’s poor show that she didn’t make more of an effort to attend the bus industry’s main set piece event of the year. I hope she really did have a genuine excuse.
Still, we were lucky enough to have Stephen Hammond MP step into the breach and give a speech in her place. Stephen is well known to the industry. As I listened it struck me what a waste it is to have somebody of his ability sitting on the backbenches.
His experience, knowledge of and interest in the transport sector should be put to better use.
It reminded me that the other day I read a report which highlighted the sheer inexperience of the government’s junior ministerial team across all departments – 71% of ministers of state and parliamentary under secretaries of state have only been in post since June 2017. It’s quite alarming that so many junior ministers are so inexperienced.
Of course we need to have new and bright talent brought into the government. But with such a large proportion of ministers who are so inexperienced, it strikes me that the balance between experience and bringing in new MPs from the backbenches – and bear in mind Nusrat Ghani has only been an MP since the May 2015 general election – is not right.
That’s no disrespect to Nusrat Ghani at all. Good luck to her on her appointment, and I’m sure that she will turn out to be a good, hard-working minister.
But when you see the waste of talent with people like Stephen Hammond you do have to wonder what criteria Prime Ministers and their advisers on these matters use when deciding who to appoint as ministers when reshuffles take place.
