Oral Answers to Questions

Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts

Monday 14th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for highlighting that investment. She makes a point about the timeframe in which the money was granted by the Treasury, but this is a programme of work that we are taking forward throughout the next few years. She will understand that there are spending review allocation decisions to be made at the moment, but we are clear that we want to continue tackling this abusive behaviour.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

The new emergency services network, which is being delivered by EE, is clearly vital for our emergency services, but also for the improvement of mobile phone services in rural areas. However, it is well behind schedule and way over budget. Is there anything the Home Secretary can do to bring that back on track?

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right—this programme is incredible late on delivery and well over budget. In fact, this House has given this programme a great deal of scrutiny, and rightly so. There is no apology for that; the failings are on the record. We are now working at pace, clearly, to deliver on this. It is a really important programme. The Policing Minister and others are working with police forces now to get this plan implemented. We want this to work, and, as my hon. Friend has highlighted, I am afraid that too much time has passed and too much money has been lost and wasted. This is a classic example of procurement and big projects not working. We have got to fix this and sort this out.