Oral Answers to Questions

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Thursday 3rd December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

I know just how difficult the traffic is at the Thrasher’s roundabout on Nacton Road and how hard my hon. Friend has campaigned on this. The pinch point fund or, more likely, the levelling-up fund, would be the way to proceed with this. That is the new £4 billion fund to resolve problems exactly like the Thrasher’s roundabout.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

Three months ago, the Secretary of State said that he would take control of the repairs to Hammersmith bridge, and he set up a taskforce chaired by the Roads Minister. Yesterday, she boasted that the Government would commit £4 million, which is less than 3% of the total cost and a fifth of what Transport for London and Hammersmith and Fulham Council have already spent. The Secretary of State knows that only the Government can fund the reopening of what he calls this “key artery”, and anywhere else in the country they would have already done so. Why not in London?

[Grant Shapps]

This bridge belongs to Hammersmith and Fulham Council. It is the council’s responsibility. Secondly, it is TfL’s responsibility. But the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: I had become fed up waiting for something to happen between the council and TfL, and when nothing was happening I wrote into the agreement with TfL for funding the other week that it must spend money both getting the ferry service going and starting the actual work. I am pleased to say that, despite the inactivity of his local authority, something is now happening thanks to our taskforce.