Business of the House

Jason McCartney Excerpts

Thursday 6th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

May I take this opportunity to welcome the hon. Gentleman? It is a pleasure to have him among us. He makes an important point on behalf of his constituents. We all recognise the impact that long-term unemployment can have. That is precisely why we are working through the Work programme to ensure that people get access to work—a quarter of those who have gone into the programme have accessed jobs—but in addition, not arriving at long-term unemployment is important. We are taking steps, following the last Government, to try to ensure that people have access to psychological therapies when they have anxiety, stress and depression associated with unemployment, and I hope that will continue.

[Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)]

Happy wedding anniversary, Mr Speaker. A weekend break in the Holme and Colne valleys would be a great way to celebrate your 10th wedding anniversary.

The M62 motorway between Huddersfield, Leeds and Manchester has been an absolute nightmare for the past month. Yesterday morning two lanes were closed at Brighouse and at the teatime rush hour the M621 junction was closed. We regularly have debates about rail services in this House. May we have a debate about the importance of keeping our motorway network moving? Not doing so causes absolute chaos for commuters.

[Mr Lansley]

I am happy to say that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport is in his place on the Front Bench and will have heard what my hon. Friend said. I know that he and his colleagues in the Department feel strongly about reducing the duration of motorway incidents to keep traffic moving and, through the so-called CLEAR programme—collision, lead, evaluate, act and reopen—are working with the agencies and responders to deliver exactly that.