Business of the House

Bill Esterson Excerpts

Thursday 20th April 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

We are not going to be shy of publishing the national shipbuilding strategy, but I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Glasgow East (Natalie McGarry) about the impact of purdah rules. I suspect that the hon. Gentleman and his party would be the first on their feet to complain if we had announcements coming out of Whitehall during a general election campaign; he would argue that those announcements were designed to help a Government seeking re-election.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

The Conservative Government in London spent £7 per person on transport projects in the south-east for every £1 per person spent in the north. Meanwhile, schools in Sefton face a cut of £518 per child and the loss of nearly 500 teachers. Before the election, can we have a statement about whether the people of Sefton Central have been let down by the Government and why they have had such appalling treatment?

[Mr Lidington]

If the hon. Gentleman looks back to as recently as the autumn statement he will find that £13 billion of infrastructure investment was reserved for northern England. I could list some of the projects—improved connections to Manchester airport, £317 million for the Tyne and Wear metro and so on—that benefit northern cities and regions directly. In his question to me, he ignored the fact that investment in London can actually bring direct benefit to centres outside London. The Crossrail trains are being built in Derby, providing jobs there, and components for London buses are made in Falkirk and Ballymena. All parts of the United Kingdom are benefiting from that programme of Government investment.