Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Edward Leigh and Andrew Jones

Tuesday 24th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Jones]

The hon. Gentleman seems to have forgotten the announcement of the national productivity investment fund—a £23 billion pot of money for investment in infrastructure, including digital infrastructure, across the country. I have already mentioned the £400 million digital infrastructure investment fund and the £740 million for full-fibre broadband and 5G. We are already approaching the figure of 95% of UK premises having access to superfast broadband by the end of the year, and that puts us in a strong place for the future.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

5. What steps he is taking to reduce tax-related bureaucracy for small and medium-sized enterprises in the east midlands.

Transport: North-east

Debate between Edward Leigh and Andrew Jones

Wednesday 23rd November 2016 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Jones]

Clearly trains have to stop if people are going to get on them. That argument does not seem to me a difficult one, but it is one that has to be built in to the franchise arrangements. I will happily take that back. The hon. Gentleman also asked about the Ashington, Blyth and Tyne line. The North East local enterprise partnership has asked us to consider a bid for development funding for the reintroduction of passenger services on that line, which seems to me to be very positive.

There has been some caution regarding HS2, which seems to me to be entirely unreasonable. HS2 will free up capacity on our network, inject capacity to allow more services to be provided and deliver benefits of £103 billion to the UK economy, around one third of which we expect to be in the north of England. Some 70% of the jobs that will be supported by HS2 are expected to be outside of London, so HS2 is an important part of our network.

We have not talked much about roads. Not only will we have a motorway running to the north-east for the first time ever, as highlighted by my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (John Stevenson), but there are also schemes to the west of Newcastle. With regard to today’s announcements, I can confirm that we have done five strategic studies in the Department for Transport as part of the road investment strategy. As part of those, the A66 will be dualled and there will be work on the north-west quadrant of the M60. That is part of the road investment strategy from 2020 to 2025, so the idea that the north-west is getting everything and the north-east is ignored is not true. There was a further announcement, which has not necessarily been picked up yet: that the Tees Valley east-west connections are also being approved to take the business case forward to the next stage. That is effectively a Darlington north-western bypass. That was a further positive announcement today.

My hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mrs Trevelyan) talked about people being doom-mongers and wondering whether anything would happen in people’s lifetimes. I was asked by a colleague whether HS2 would happen in anyone’s lifetime and I suggested that, as we were starting to do the build in the spring, it would be quite a good idea to hang on—we do not want a by-election. I agree entirely on the merits of the Borders line. It is one of the most beautiful parts of our United Kingdom, and it is a big success. I will be very happy to see it extended. That sounds like a good idea, but I have not seen anything further on it.

This is my last point. I hope that this quick canter through the various announcements that have been made has highlighted the fact that significant investment is taking place in road and rail. We have seen air capacity increased. We have changes taking place to buses—

[Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

Order. The Minister should please give the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson) 30 seconds to wind up.

[Andrew Jones]

I heartily support all that is happening and the Government’s strong commitment to the north-east.