Lord Beith
Main Page: Lord Beith (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Beith's debates with the Department for Transport
(14 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Hammond
If the hon. Gentleman thinks that the black hole in the finances is nonsense, he needs to go back and do a little more homework. It is the most serious problem facing our country today and the most urgent challenge for this Government. However, let us be clear about the Mersey Gateway project. All we have done is suspend the progress of the scheme until after the current spending review is completed. We believe that it would be wrong to encourage or allow local authorities to incur significant additional expenditure on a large number of projects when some of them clearly may not be able to proceed on the original timetable.
Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)
Is my right hon. Friend going to treat the A1 as a national strategic road, rather than a regional road, and develop plans for full dualling of it when resources allow?