Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Katherine Fletcher and Huw Merriman(9 months ago)
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Huw Merriman
As my right hon. Friend mentions, additional funding through Network North will help. Network Rail has been working with the taskforce and its consultants on timetable capacity and analysis, to see whether there is a smarter way to deliver additional services, with fewer infrastructure interventions. We expect that work to complete next month. I would be delighted if my right hon. Friend would join me and leaders of Worcestershire and Oxfordshire County Councils, and her neighbouring MP, to discuss this matter in the coming weeks.
Katherine Fletcher (South Ribble) (Con)
Doncaster Sheffield Airport
Debate between Katherine Fletcher and Huw Merriman(2 years, 2 months ago)
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Huw Merriman
I ask the Minister, notwithstanding the disrespect from the sidelines, whether she can provide more detail about what that technical assistance could be for those of us in the Chamber who do not think it is a laughing matter.
Katherine Fletcher
I thank the Chair of the Select Committee for the question. As I do not have the aviation portfolio, I will not commit from the Dispatch Box to things that are not exactly accurate; I will ask Baroness Vere to write to him with the specifics of the technical assistance. I do know that there have repeated meetings at a number of levels. When it comes to regional airports, he makes a good point. As I outlined in my opening remarks, in Manchester, Liverpool and the Tees Valley, among others, local authorities are investing to support a commercial solution. That option is available to the South Yorkshire mayoral combined authority and to Doncaster Council in this case.