Ian Blackford
Main Page: Ian Blackford (Scottish National Party - Ross, Skye and Lochaber)Department Debates - View all Ian Blackford's debates with the Department for Transport
(8 years, 7 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Claire Perry)
The best schemes are those that are strongly supported by local authorities, local enterprise partnerships and local businesses. Network Rail is in a new phase in which route responsibility will be devolved, and it will work to a set of investment plans that are agreed, based on important bottom-up analysis.
Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)
Over the past 10 years, destinations and routes from Scotland have doubled, but flights to London have fallen by more than a third. Not only do we need starter routes, such as the Inverness to Heathrow route that we will have next week, but we need to up the frequency of these routes and guarantee them, as that would allow them to bed in and become fully established. Will the Minister establish a point-to-point public service obligation, including specific regional hub airports, and do all he can to create PSOs for airports such as Skye in my constituency?
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mr Robert Goodwill)
We absolutely understand the importance of PSOs and of aviation, particularly for island communities. I am pleased that we have seen such a successful uptake of many of these routes, a number of which have been started without needing subsidies because of the buoyancy of the economy and the aviation sector.