Transport (Investment)

Bob Ainsworth Excerpts

Tuesday 26th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. The Northern Way has produced some extremely valuable work that has informed a number of the decisions that have been taken and I look forward to its continuing to contribute to the debate.

[Mr Bob Ainsworth (Coventry North East) (Lab)]

May I tell the Secretary of State that the Coventry and Warwickshire travel-to-work area runs on a north-south axis and, despite the congested state of the roads and the existence of a railway, a fraction of 1% of the journeys take place by rail? That is why the Coventry to Nuneaton rail upgrade is so important. It seems that he has put us in the waiting room for the waiting room and that we have only until January, to save the scheme at all. I have no doubt that if the Coventry and Warwickshire local enterprise partnership was up and running, that would be the top priority for it, but will the Secretary of State advise us how on earth, when that LEP is not even in existence yet, we can impress on his Department the importance of this scheme and get it into a state for approval before January? I would like some advice.

[Mr Hammond]

To clarify, the scheme to which the right hon. Gentleman refers is one in the pool of projects submitted to the Department before the cut-off date that we announced in June, but it has not yet been appraised by the Department. The Department will now make a rapid assessment of the scheme—the right hon. Gentleman asserts that it is extremely high value for money, but I can tell him that the promoter of every single scheme that I have come across asserts that their scheme is high value for money. A number of these schemes will then be accelerated into the development pool so that we can do further work on them with the promoters during 2011 with a view to allocating funding at the end of 2011. I would say to the right hon. Gentleman, as I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood), that if a rail scheme is not successful in this funding process, it will of course be possible for it to be put forward as a proposal for the next control period of Network Rail’s capital enhancement settlement.