Oral Answers to Questions

Gagan Mohindra Excerpts

Thursday 24th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[James Grundy (Leigh) (Con)]

6. What recent steps his Department has taken to help level up communities through the transport network.

[Mr Gagan Mohindra (South West Hertfordshire) (Con)]

12. What steps he is taking to help provide support for local transport routes.

[Antony Higginbotham (Burnley) (Con)]

16. What steps he is taking to help provide support for local transport routes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Harper]

My hon. Friend is a doughty champion for his constituents. My officials continue to work closely with the Greater Manchester Combined Authority on the proposal to open a new rail station at Golborne as part of the £1 billion city region sustainable transport settlement announced earlier this year. Local partners are currently producing an outline business case to support the proposal, which we expect to receive and consider in due course. Bids to open Kenyon Junction station were submitted in the second and third rounds of the ideas fund, but were sadly unsuccessful.

[Mr Mohindra]

I welcome the Secretary of State to his place. Unfortunately, I have had countless pieces of correspondence from my constituents about buses in my local area of South West Hertfordshire. Services are typically infrequent and consistently late. Can he update the House as to what he is doing to ensure that those services are more reliable so that we can continue to encourage people to use public transport?

[Mr Harper]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that issue and I am sorry to hear about the difficulties that his constituents are facing in accessing bus services. I know from my constituency how vital bus services are for individuals to get to work and to access education and healthcare. We are engaging with bus operators and local authorities to help to resolve the challenges that they face. The national bus strategy sets out our vision for bus services across England to deliver better bus services. To that end, we are investing more than £1 billion to support local authorities to deliver their bus service improvement plans, including £30 million for Hertfordshire County Council, which will support improvements to bus services in his constituency.