Business of the House

David Nuttall Excerpts

Thursday 5th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

Yes, it would. I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on that little advertisement for something made in Wales. Our ties with Bangladesh are important. While the hon. Gentleman was over there in Bangladesh, I was speaking last week at the British Bangladeshi power and inspiration awards, saluting the many people of Bangladeshi origin who make an immense contribution to this country and our business success. This is something to celebrate. I hope the hon. Gentleman will push the case for a debate, but given all the constraints on our remaining time, he will have to do so through all the other normal channels.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

The United Kingdom is being forced by the EU’s Brussels bureaucrats to replace on our railways distance signs showing miles with ones showing kilometres. May we have a statement on what this will cost and on the potential risks to staff and passengers?

[Mr Hague]

I understand from the Department for Transport that this European traffic management system is meant to be a major improvement in safety on the railways. We already have one of the safest railways in Europe, and this is expected to make the network even safer. Where it is installed, it will apparently use the metric system, but when drivers operate in areas of the conventional system, their speedometers will automatically switch to imperial measurement. My hon. Friend will be relieved to hear that. In the UK, the drivers of trains and the signallers will not be required to convert units between imperial and metric. They will be able to concentrate on driving the train.