Ben Bradshaw
Main Page: Ben Bradshaw (Labour - Exeter)Department Debates - View all Ben Bradshaw's debates with the Department for Transport
(2 years ago)
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Kevin Foster
It is extremely kind of the hon. Gentleman to offer to take me through a Labour party policy document. However, I would rather stick with the plan for rail that is the Government’s policy—the one that we will continue to take forward. My focus will always be, not on dogma, but on whether customers and communities are being served. Considering the way Labour Members try to portray British Rail as a panacea of customer services, I suggest they look back on some of the old news reports about how it used to operate.
Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)
The long-awaited transport Bill, which has now been abandoned despite having been in the Queen’s Speech just months ago, was not just going to deliver Great British Railways, but address a whole range of pressing and long-overdue transport problems in this country: the menace of pavement parking, regulating e-scooters and so on. Is not the reason for this chaos that we do not have, and have not had for some months, a functioning Government? Would it not be more democratic and better if there was a general election and we had a Government with a mandate that was united to address the pressing problems the country faces?
Kevin Foster
It is interesting to hear the right hon. Gentleman say he wants to see the legislative timetable accelerated and, in the same breath, that he wants to dissolve Parliament. We will get on with the job and leave the politicking to others.