Oral Answers to Questions

Dennis Skinner Excerpts

Thursday 2nd December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

My hon. Friend is right to observe that the introduction of HS 2 services in 2025 will of course change the nature of operations on the west coast main line. It will create additional capacity on that line and provide the opportunity for more trains that stop at more places, which is one of the demands that we regularly receive, and it will also create the opportunity for more freight paths and thus more transfer of freight from road to rail. The precise detail of service patterns will have to be decided when the franchise for west coast main line post-2025 is let.

[Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)]

Instead of all these reviews about the weather, why does not the Secretary of State get on the phone to the Tory councils in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire and tell them to get the gritters out?

[Mr Hammond]

I can tell the hon. Gentleman that gritters on the strategic road network, which are operated by the Highways Agency, have been out and have been carrying out the planned number of gritting runs.

[Mr Skinner]

I am talking about villages.

[Mr Hammond]

The hon. Gentleman says he is talking about villages. One thing I have asked David Quarmby to do is to consider the response of local authorities, whether they have uniformly implemented the recommendations in his review, which reported earlier this year, and what lessons have to be learned. I shall make public David Quarmby’s findings, which we expect to receive in a couple of weeks’ time.