"I thank my right hon. Friend for bringing us back to reality—[Interruption.] Sorry, he is my hon. Friend, soon to be right hon. Friend.
We must be serious on capacity. I and fellow Lancashire Members have been fighting for some time for a direct train service from …..." Eric Ollerenshaw - View Speech
"Lancaster is not on the line yet—it might be eventually, and I might stand here in future asking for a stop there—but we will reap the benefit, as the right hon. Gentleman says. The spur line that will be built means that high-speed trains will enter the normal west coast …..." Eric Ollerenshaw - View Speech
"I am tempted to go down that line, but, given the outbreak of consensus, I will stick with that. To be fair, northern MPs of every party have sat on the all-party parliamentary group on rail in the north, and fought together to get the northern hub from the Government—an …..." Eric Ollerenshaw - View Speech
"I would assume nothing less, having worked with the hon. Gentleman and fellow northern MPs to get that extra investment. To be fair, the Government have delivered in the non-high speed section across the piece. In my small patch, they have agreed to electrification from Blackpool to Preston. Only a …..." Eric Ollerenshaw - View Speech
"That could be a benefit of having a Conservative London Mayor. From my perspective in Lancashire, I see that the Olympics cost £9 billion; there are continual tube upgrades; I do not know how much is spent on subsidising bus fares in London; HS1 into London cost £6 billion; we …..." Eric Ollerenshaw - View Speech
"I assumed we were already joined to Scotland. That could be an exaggeration—[Laughter.] For some of my constituents, it is not an exaggeration.
For coalition Members, one key thing was to rebalance the economy of this country. For me, high-speed rail is a key part of that. …..." Eric Ollerenshaw - View Speech
"T4. Will the Minister confirm that northern commuters on the trans-Pennine routes are still in line to benefit from the promised 40 extra carriages, and will he continue to look into increasing capacity on those northern commuter routes?..." Eric Ollerenshaw - View Speech
"When it comes to the impact of High Speed 2 on Lancaster and the rest of the north-west beyond—dare I say—Manchester and Merseyside, if I understood it correctly the Secretary of State was saying that high-speed trains from London to Manchester would enter the west coast main line just above …..." Eric Ollerenshaw - View Speech
"I thank the Minister for that reply. I understand that the planning inspectorate’s report on the possible M6 link road to Heysham port around Lancaster may be on the Minister’s desk. Given that the plans for that were first sketched out in 1948, could somebody speed things up a little …..." Eric Ollerenshaw - View Speech