Oral Answers to Questions

Darren Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 14th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Alun Cairns]

As I said in my initial answer, I do not think that the continuity Bill is necessary. The Welsh Government have also said that they would prefer not to pursue it. I genuinely believe that there is enough good will between all Administrations to come to an agreement. After all, if we focus on the needs of businesses and communities, we will achieve a positive outcome. It is when politicians focus on the powers rather than on outcomes that things go wrong.

[Darren Jones (Bristol North West) (Lab)]

3. What recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Transport on the effect on the Welsh economy of the decision not to electrify the mainline to Swansea.

[Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

5. What recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Transport on the effect on the Welsh economy of the decision not to electrify the mainline to Swansea.

[Darren Jones]

The failure to fully electrify the line to Swansea means that more people will use their cars. Following the removal of the tolls on the Severn bridge, the Department for Transport said in response to my written parliamentary question:

“No further modelling was undertaken”

on the increase in cars. Has the Minister’s Department assessed the potential further gridlock in north Bristol?

[Stuart Andrew]

I simply do not accept that not electrifying the line to Swansea will not bring benefits—it will. The train journey times to London from those areas will be reduced by 15 minutes. We have to recognise that the costs have gone up significantly. The benefit-to-cost ratio was extremely low and even the Public Accounts Committee recommended looking at the issue again.

G20

Darren Jones Excerpts

Monday 10th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The fact is that the treaty makes it clear that there is a link between membership of the European Union and membership of Euratom. Across this House, we are all agreed that we want to ensure that we can still maintain the arrangements and relationships that currently exist under Euratom, but they will be on a different basis in future. There is no argument that we want to maintain those relationships.

[Darren Jones (Bristol North West) (Lab)]

I thank the Prime Minister for her statement and note her efforts to reform the World Trade Organisation rules in order that they keep up with the services and digital sectors, which are crucial to the British economy. Does she agree that any reform of the WTO rules will take longer than the time we have left before the UK crashes out of EU without a trade deal in 2019?

[The Prime Minister]

One point of my comments at the G20 was that we need to speed up how the WTO considers these issues. Looking at the trade rules around the digital economy is not being started from scratch; the WTO has been doing it for some time. We just need to ensure that we get on with it and get those rules set.