Avanti West Coast Contract Renewal Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Transport
Chi Onwurah
Main Page: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)Department Debates - View all Chi Onwurah's debates with the Department for Transport
Avanti West Coast Contract Renewal
Chi Onwurah Excerpts(2 years, 1 month ago)
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Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Why does the Minister insist on rewarding private sector failure—Avanti or TransPennine Express—with more public money, while refusing to invest in transformative public transport services such as Northern Powerhouse Rail? Does he think that my constituents, deprived of an affordable or reliable means of getting to work, are pleased to know that their hard-worked-for taxes are being used by this Government literally to pay the private sector to profit from their misery?
Kevin Foster
I have covered a number of times the position on performance payments in the Avanti contract. The hon. Lady’s constituents will have seen the clear commitment we have made to investment in Northern Powerhouse Rail over the last few months. They will have seen the start of work on the trans-Pennine upgrade. They will have seen the integrated rail plan, and they will see the first new main line to be built in this country along the spine of it since the Victorian era, already moving from London to Birmingham and then on to Manchester after that. I think they will be slightly more impressed by that than whatever they can see from 13 years of investment under Labour.
Bill Presented
Ministerial and Other Pensions and Salaries (Amendment) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
David Linden, supported by Drew Hendry, Gavin Newlands, Brendan O’Hara and Alan Brown, presented a Bill to provide that a person who ceases to hold a ministerial office is entitled to a grant only after holding the relevant office for two years or more; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 18 November, and to be printed (Bill 172).