Business of the House

Debate between Neil O'Brien and Penny Mordaunt

Thursday 23rd May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank my hon. Friend for all the work he has done over the many years for the Westminster Foundation for Democracy—an organisation with which we are all familiar and with which many Members have worked—to ensure that democracy is strong in many places around the world. Of course, we have an opportunity over the next few weeks to demonstrate how well elections can be done and how well we can conduct ourselves during the course of an election. I assure him that I will ensure that those who need to hear will have heard what he has said about the Criminal Justice Bill, and I will also write to DCMS on his behalf about the loans issue.

[Neil O’Brien (Harborough) (Con)]

Madam Deputy Speaker, you have given great service to this House. I alerted the other Madam Deputy Speaker to the fact that I would mention somebody else who has done that. We have just arrived at the point where Shirley Tovell in my team has been working for Members of this House for 55 years. [Hon. Members: “Wow!”] She has been working for the people of Harborough, Oadby and Wigston since 1992. Like you, Madam Deputy Speaker, she is incredibly hard working and has wonderful energy, so I thought I would pay tribute to her in this House.

Will the Leader of the House allow a debate on and talk to the Department for Transport about the crucial issue of bridge closures during rail electrification works? I lobbied for the extension of rail electrification through Harborough up to Wigston at an early stage, and we are now getting the whole of the midland main line electrified, which is a wonderful investment that make trains quieter, greener, cheaper and faster. It is a great thing, but the bridge closures during it have been disruptive. I am chasing Network Rail about sorting out a massive puddle it has created at the end of a bridge at Kibworth. In Newton Lane, a bridge has been shut for too long. I have had endless meetings, and it is finally opening next week.

Most importantly, I organised a meeting about the lessons learned, and the first place we need to learn those lessons relates to Spion Kop bridge, which is a vital artery between Wigston and South Wigston in my constituency. The next stage of the electrification works will take the wires under that bridge, and Network Rail is looking at the different options. There are options that involve the bridge closing, and there are potentially more expensive options that could keep it open. Will the Leader of the House write to the Department for Transport about that? The project is currently ahead of schedule and under budget, so let us use some of that resource to do whatever it takes to stop that bridge closing, as it would be a disaster if it shuts. Will she please write to the Prime Minister and the Department for Transport about this, so that we do not have to shut Spion Kop bridge?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I will absolutely do what my hon. Friend asks—I shall do that this afternoon—and I thank him for the diligence with which he is approaching this issue for his constituents, even on the penultimate sitting day of this Parliament.

When my hon. Friend mentioned his colleague Shirley and her incredible decades of service to this House, there was an audible noise of support in acknowledging that huge achievement and the depths of her duty to this place and to his constituency.