Railways Bill

Debate between Heidi Alexander and Andrew Murrison

2nd reading
Tuesday 9th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Heidi Alexander]

We had a wonderful day in Bournemouth marking the first train operating company coming into public ownership under our new legislation. We will have a laser-like focus on building a railway that the public can be proud of and rely on.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

On that point, will the Secretary of State give way?

[Heidi Alexander]

I will make some progress and I will give way to the right hon. Gentleman later.

The Government’s determination is to build a railway that is greater than the sum of its parts. It is not just about getting us from A to B; the railway is a route to aspiration, jobs and higher living standards right across this country. My message to passengers is simple: better times and better trains lie ahead.

[Heidi Alexander]

I am looking forward to working with my hon. Friend and her colleagues in Derby, pulling together the plans for the new headquarters in a city that I know is already brimming with railway talent. We will be publishing a rolling stock and infrastructure strategy next year to give confidence and certainty to the supply chain, and we will be able to perform longer-term planning precisely because we are bringing the management of track and train together.

[Dr Murrison]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for allowing me to intervene. Her Wiltshire constituents and mine are not really interested in organisational change, but they are interested in railways that run on time, are reasonably comfortable and have interconnectivity. When will those passengers who use South Western Railway expect to see tangible improvements, rather than the 50% increase in cancellations that they have seen since May and the 29% increase in delays that they have seen during the time that the service has been renationalised?

[Heidi Alexander]

Next year the right hon. Gentleman’s constituents will have their fares frozen for the first time in 30 years. Under the last Government, fares went up by 60% between 2010 and 2024. I can only assume that he was not listening to the reply I gave to the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson).

Road and Rail Projects

Debate between Heidi Alexander and Andrew Murrison

Tuesday 8th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Heidi Alexander]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend, which is why, for the first time in years, this Government will be producing a new road safety strategy. I look forward to talking more with her and other colleagues about its contents.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

The Secretary of State is a Wiltshire MP, so she will be very familiar with the town of Westbury, which has waited for decades for its bypass. Will she assure me that she is actively looking at proposals to bypass Westbury to the west of the town, including Yarnbrook, and does she agree that the north-south strategic study provides an opportunity to get the bypass that Westbury so desperately needs?

[Heidi Alexander]

I will need to write to the right hon. Gentleman about the Westbury scheme. I will make sure that I look into the details of it and I will come back to him.

HS2 Reset

Debate between Heidi Alexander and Andrew Murrison

Wednesday 18th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Heidi Alexander]

I share my hon. Friend’s anger. He is a powerful advocate for his constituents, who have endured disruption, and I agree entirely that the way this project was handled was a dereliction of duty on the part of the previous Government. That is why we have appointed new leadership, why we are accepting all the recommendations of the James Stewart review, and why we are going through this fundamental reset. As soon as I have received advice from the new chief executive about the revised cost and schedule, I will update my hon. Friend and other hon. Members.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

As a south-west region MP, does the Secretary of State agree that the west country has for decades been the poor country cousin of our rail network, and that money spent on HS2 is money not spent elsewhere? Will she do all in her power to ensure that the relatively small changes that are necessary on the network in the south-west to make life a lot easier go ahead, and will she look particularly at the absolutely woeful west of England line?

[Heidi Alexander]

There are challenges across the rail network, and I readily accept that improvements are needed in many parts of the country. I do not necessarily accept that the south-west is the poor cousin of the rail network, but I can assure the right hon. Gentleman of my determination to make sure that everyone, no matter where they live in this country, has a better rail service at the end of this Parliament than they did at the beginning of it.

Disruption at Heathrow

Debate between Heidi Alexander and Andrew Murrison

Monday 24th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Heidi Alexander]

I am very happy to give my hon. Friend that commitment.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

Does the Secretary of State agree that what happened on Thursday and Friday is a complete national embarrassment and should never have happened? Will she do an assessment of our remaining airports to ensure not only that they also have multiple supply points for electricity, but that they do not rely on the illusion, as plainly happened at Heathrow, that those multiple supply points made it completely reliable as a hub airport? That appears at first glance to have been the case for Heathrow, and it is not adequate.

[Heidi Alexander]

Perhaps the right hon. Member was not listening when I responded to questions from this side of the Chamber. There were multiple power supply points to the airport, but Heathrow took the decision that it needed to reconfigure the supply in the airport, as terminals 2 and 4 were very badly affected. It decided to put the safety and security of the travelling public first. It powered down all those systems and then powered them up again. I was not in the room when those decisions were taken. Heathrow is a private company, and it took decisions about what it thought was best for the travelling public. I, as Transport Secretary, am not going to second-guess those, but I will ensure that we do very thorough reviews. I will interrogate those reviews very carefully and ensure that any lessons we need to learn are acted upon.