Flooding: Transport Disruption Debate
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Jim Cunningham
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Flooding: Transport Disruption
Jim Cunningham Excerpts(10 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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Mr McLoughlin
I can certainly give my hon. Friend a promise about the commitment that she seeks; the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath) also asked the question. I know how important the main line to Dawlish and my hon. Friend’s constituency is. The other thing that we need to consider is whether we can build in better resilience than went into the wall when it was first built more than 100 years ago.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
Has there been any major damage to the west coast main line and will the Secretary of State invest any new money into it? Will he also find out why there are regular hold-ups on that line between Birmingham and Euston?
Mr McLoughlin
One of the reasons why there might be regular hold-ups was pointed out by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Mr Burns) a moment ago: the question of capacity on that line. The hon. Gentleman will remember that the west coast main line saw investment of more than £9 billion, all north of Rugby. That went some way towards improving certain bits of the line’s capacity, but it did not improve the capacity into London.