Bill Esterson
Main Page: Bill Esterson (Labour - Sefton Central)Department Debates - View all Bill Esterson's debates with the Department for Transport
(13 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Norman Baker
I accept the hon. Gentleman’s legitimate point about that connection, and I am happy to meet him—perhaps it might be helpful if that happened at the same time as the other meeting that I agreed to earlier.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
In a letter to me, the Under-Secretary confirmed the good news about the Switch island to Thornton relief road, but he used the phrase “increased local contributions”. Can the Secretary of State tell me now what he expects those contributions to be?
Mr Hammond
I believe that the letter the hon. Gentleman refers to talks about the need for discussion to be held with local authorities on the cost of schemes and local contributions. As I said on Tuesday, when we are spending taxpayers’ money, we have an absolute duty to ensure that we have explored every opportunity to minimise the taxpayer contribution and the cost. That is what we will do, but he has approval for the scheme and it will go ahead. We will engage with his local authority to ensure that it is as efficient as possible.