Rail Announcement
Debate between Chris Evans and Lord Grayling(6 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Chris Grayling
I and my ministerial team are always happy to meet to discuss services to the great city of Hull. The hon. Lady is not entirely accurate, because I did refer to the announcement I made a month ago about the start of the £2.9 billion investment in the trans-Pennine upgrade, which will start next spring.
Chris Evans (Islwyn) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister will know that £1.2 billion was overspent on electrification between London Paddington and Swansea, and he knows that is not the only transport infrastructure project in relation to which the National Audit Office has found overspending. How confident is he that safeguards are in place for future infrastructure contracts for the east and west coast main lines, along with HS2, to prevent overspending that needlessly costs taxpayers millions?
Chris Grayling
It is always possible for technical problems to arise, as we are seeing in Bolton at the moment, but I think that lessons are being learned. Lessons are certainly being learned from the Great Western main line, which has not been run on an acceptable basis—it has been subject to reviews by the NAO, the Public Accounts Committee and the Transport Committee. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that Network Rail and my Department are seized of the need to ensure that that does not happen in future.