Oral Answers to Questions

Duncan Hames Excerpts

Wednesday 18th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I remind the House that we are on the subject of the First Great Western franchise.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

Some of the cross-border services on the franchise run on the Cardiff to Portsmouth line, which in places suffers from severe overcrowding, as experienced by my constituents in Bradford on Avon. Will the Wales Office support our call for greater capacity on that cross-border route under the new franchise?

[Mr Jones]

My hon. Friend might be aware that extra capacity is being provided this year, with an additional 48 carriages that will provide 4,500 extra seats at peak times between London and south Wales.

Oral Answers to Questions

Duncan Hames Excerpts

Wednesday 8th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

What I expect and hope the right hon. Gentleman will believe is that it is now for the police to investigate whether these new charges and allegations have anything to them. That is what the police are there for. Does the right hon. Gentleman want us all to start second-guessing what is in the newspaper and what statements have been made? Let the police—[Interruption.] Look, we have a war in Afghanistan, we have a flood in Pakistan, and the right hon. Gentleman is inviting the Government to second-guess the work of the police. I should have thought that, after all the years during which he was involved in our criminal justice system, he would know better.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

Yesterday a serving police officer was jailed for an appalling assault committed in a police station in my constituency. While I believe that we can draw confidence in the Wiltshire police from the brave officer who blew the whistle, does the Deputy Prime Minister agree that it cannot be right that, owing to restrictive police conduct regulations, the offending officer continued on full pay for more than two years after the attack?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Like, I suspect, many Members in all parts of the House, I was deeply shocked by the pictures of the offence that was perpetrated by the police officer. I also share people’s dismay that action was not taken more speedily. However stressful the conditions in which police officers work, it is absolutely essential that they uphold the very high standards of their own conduct in all circumstances, and that was clearly not the case in this instance. I am glad that action is finally being taken, although, like my hon. Friend, I wish that it could have been taken earlier.