Regional Transport Infrastructure Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Transport
Emma Hardy
Main Page: Emma Hardy (Labour - Kingston upon Hull West and Haltemprice)Department Debates - View all Emma Hardy's debates with the Department for Transport
(5 years, 9 months ago)
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Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Ryan. I will try desperately hard to confine my comments to just three minutes. I would like to start by being kind to the Minister and thanking him for his personal support in getting the A63 project working in Hull. That has been 20 years coming—for 20 years it has been a battle to get the bridge built and the A63 work done. I am thanking the Minister partly because I want that support and help to continue until the project is completely finished—I hope to buy myself some favours there.
Hull does have a bright future. In 2017 it was the UK city of culture, described as
“a city coming out of the shadows”.
Some people describe that as the end of the line, but I say it was just the beginning, because what better place could there be to start than in the city of Hull? To keep that going and stop talent leaving our city—to enable people to stay there, live there, work there, be successful and reach their potential—we desperately need more money for our infrastructure; for our roads and railway. The Minister is already supporting us with the roads, so I will comment briefly on the need to support us with the railway. I know that the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones), is coming up to Hull to look at the railway.
I fully support what my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) said about Transport for the North’s proposal and the desperate need for Northern Powerhouse Rail to link up with Hull. We desperately need a direct service from Hull all the way through to Manchester City airport. We would also like more frequent trains to go through to Leeds. Some constituents living in my city work in Leeds, and they now feel compelled to move to Leeds because of the problems with the transport links and infrastructure. I want to press the Minister on that.
I also want to press the Minister for a little more cash, please, but for a different road this time: Calvert Lane in Hull, which is in desperate need of complete remodelling. The ongoing work on the A63, which I am eternally grateful for, as he knows, has created additional pressure and traffic chaos at times in the city, and also huge problems with air pollution. Hull bid for the transforming cities fund but was unsuccessful, so if the Minister could look kindly upon Hull again and perhaps reach down the back of the sofa and find us some more cash for Calvert Lane, I would be very grateful for that as well.
Hull has a great future, but the money needed for our transport infrastructure is desperately overdue, and what better time to start giving us more cash than today?