Business of the House

Katherine Fletcher Excerpts

Thursday 3rd November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

I will write to the Treasury to make sure it has heard the hon. Lady’s request. The UK has achieved much that we should celebrate, not just in our domestic agenda but in our global leadership. More than 190 countries agreed to ditch coal, and leaders representing 90% of the planet’s forests agreed to halt deforestation. Those are just some of the things that our leadership has enabled.

[Katherine Fletcher (South Ribble) (Con)]

Too many communities in this country are having problems with transport infrastructure, not on a macro scale but on a significant community scale, with schemes that are too big for local councils but too small to draw the attention of the Department for Transport.

Mr Speaker, you will be familiar with Tarleton, a beautiful village in my patch. Up to 300 heavy goods vehicles a day are going past schools, for want of a small road so that they do not have to drive directly through the village. Can the Leader of the House advise on what we can do to better join up local and national Government structures to deliver transport infrastructure for our communities? Can we have a debate in Government time on how we can make what we invest and how we work, work for local people?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank my hon. Friend for that practical suggestion. I understand she is seeking to hold the Government to account on these issues and I wish her well with her campaign to be Chair of the Select Committee. The kind of schemes she is referring to would benefit from the integrated transport block funding, which is for small and medium-sized transport improvements. It is not ringfenced funding and it is channelled through local authorities. I take the point that larger schemes often would not qualify for that. I will write to the Department for Transport to ask it to contact her on its future plans.